


Fault Lines

by BMP



Category: Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Gen, Gen Fic, Long-ass fic, Magnificent Seven AU: ATF, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-25
Updated: 2011-06-30
Packaged: 2017-10-20 17:16:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 237,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/215133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BMP/pseuds/BMP
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An ATF AU answer to the episode "Achilles", minus, of course the Achilles character or any character remotely like the Achilles character. Go figure.<br/>(When I say long-ass fic, I mean LONG-ASS fic.  So if you ain't skeered by that, come on along.  I hope you enjoy the ride.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wish to thank MOG for the ATF AU, she came up with it, and graciously lets others play there. Thanks to EJ, who so graciously read the first version. Special thanks to Van because she actually listened to the whole dang story once, and read it through, twice no less, with comments and advice and tough love and everything. She wouldn't let me give up on the story, so while you can blame me for all the errors, you can blame her for the story's continued existence. Thanks always to GSister. Without her insistence, none of these stories would never have been.

 

          If you could know in the morning, really know without ever leaving your bed what sort of a day it was going to be, would you want to know?  Would you want to see that far into the future?  Would you want the opportunity to stay in bed, skip out, and avoid the possibility of something really awful happening that day?  What if by doing that, by staying home and hiding your head under the pillows, you let something really awful happen to someone else? 

          It was a good question.  And one that ATF Agent J.D. Dunne had ample time to ponder.  Yet pondering it didn't get him any closer to an answer.  Or remove from him the simple, crushing truth—he didn't get that chance to decide.  He had only acted.  And the reality of that was purely and simply inescapable.

          People came and went in the blue-gray foyer, dress shoes clicking on the granite flooring, stopping at the large reception desk, dropping off papers and picking up messages, most of them not even noticing him sitting in the chair.  And he didn't know what was worse, to be here now, left entirely to himself and his thoughts, or to be back in the federal building enduring sympathetic words and gestures from agents and colleagues that he hardly knew. 

          But then it wasn't like he had a choice but to be here.  It wasn't like he had a choice three days ago either.

          Or maybe he had. 

          He had gone over it so many times in his head that he just didn't know anymore.  All he knew was that three solid days of searching had not yielded a gun.  Nor did he expect it to because, God help him, he was certain the boy had not had one. 

          Instead he sat in this reception area, avoiding the newspaper folded neatly on a table next to him, and waited for his name to be called, for someone else to take the reins in the next step of a series of events that was now well beyond his control. 

          His last moment of control had been the instant before he squeezed that trigger.

          "Agent Dunne?" the receptionist's voice queried suddenly. 

          J.D. stood up. 

          A woman in a blue suit stood to the right of the reception desk.  She gave him a smile and asked him politely to come with her. 

 

 

          "Give them another day to look for the gun." 

          "No."

          The word was simple and short and, although not entirely without feeling, certainly not adequate for the situation at hand. 

          At his desk out in Team Seven's bullpen, Ezra winced, and wondered how even Chris Larabee could be so oblivious to that fact.

          "Just one day." 

          Buck Wilmington's tone coming out of the Team Leader's office bordered dangerously on pleading.   

          The tone alone made Ezra wonder whether he shouldn't be trying quite so hard to listen in.  But then again, he was not the one who didn't close the office door.  His teammates, had any of them been present at the moment, would have done exactly the same as he was doing now. 

          It wasn't great justification, but the need to know outweighed the need to keep up appearances.  Besides, to any casual observer, Ezra Standish was at his desk working away, while his team leader and the second in command happened to be in Chris Larabee's office having a discussion, which promised to turn heated in short order given Larabee's hardheaded refusal to even listen to Buck make his point and Wilmington's equally obstinate refusal to see the logic that was right in front of his face.  

          There was no way Chris was going to give anyone any more time at that taped-off crime scene to look for a gun that three days and two nights of searching every inch of storefront, linoleum, shelving, and concrete had not yielded.  And Ezra knew it.  Everyone on the team knew it.  But what Buck Wilmington knew and what he agreed to acknowledge did not always run in the same circles. 

          Chris did not repeat his refusal. 

          No surprise there.  Ezra wondered if Chris really thought maintaining silence would help Buck to see reason right now.

          If Larabee could look past stone cold logic,he would see that this had nothing to do with reason.  It had to do with J.D. Dunne.  And where Buck's young protégé was concerned, Wilmington could be downright unreasonable.

          "I'll look for it myself," Wilmington said, taking Chris's silence as a sign of making some kind of inroad into the problem.  Typical.  "I'll take Vin and we can…"

          Ezra stiffened in anticipation.

          "No," Chris repeated with more vehemence than was probably strategically appropriate, breaking off Buck's sentence right in the middle. 

          The sudden silence hung, almost palpable.  Ezra studied his computer screen, and told himself the sudden chill in the room was only his imagination. 

          "The answer is no," Chris repeated more quietly.  But there was no mistaking the steely tone.

          Ezra slanted his eyes toward the office as Buck's head drew back in frustration.

          "You looked two days ago," Chris reminded him.  The Senior Agent's voice was calm, but the resolve in it had not softened a single iota.  Ezra resisted the urge to shake his head as the Team Leader's unassailable logic continued in its doomed trajectory despite the obvious signs.

          "Teams have been searching for three days," Chris pointed out.  "It isn't there." 

          "It's got to be there," Buck repeated.  Just as stubbornly refusing to see the signs himself.   

          _Bridge out ahead_ , Ezra thought.  He could hear the planking splintering as Chris rose from his desk chair.

          Ezra wondered if it would look too suspicious if he suddenly found somewhere else he needed to be right that instant.  But in the end, the point was moot, as he couldn't tear himself from the spectacle playing out before him.

          Ezra was pretty sure that Chris wanted every bit as badly as Buck did for someone to just find the gun that kid was carrying.

          Ezra had wanted it, too.  Every man on the team did.  But then the talk of finding _the_ gun had turned to hope that they might find any gun—some random gun that could be ascribed to the kid and used to make a case that the boy was carrying like the others.  Or maybe just something that looked like a gun.  Something that a review board or a jury could be induced to believe might look like a gun under fire, under stress, under the circumstances. 

          That was when Chris slammed on the brakes.  Hard. 

          Ezra supposed he could understand that.  God knew the team had been accused often enough of drifting from the straight and narrow line they were duty-bound to walk.  And sometimes steamrolling right over it without looking back.

          Plus, meetings upon meetings with increasingly higher and wider levels of brass, may have had something to do with Chris's decision to terminate the search.  There were certainly no shortage of increasingly strident voices ordering him to stop stonewalling and shut it down. 

          Unfortunately, when Chris slammed down the brakes, ostensibly to save the team, Buck saw J.D.'s career go flying through the splintered windshield, and Buck's bleeding little heart went right with it.

          It was beyond Ezra why Chris, who was normally rather perceptive about his team's state of mind, couldn't get down off his high horse and acknowledge that cold logic had nothing to do with Buck's reasoning here.  Then again, although Chris Larabee was often very clear about other people's points of view, for reasons known only to himself, that didn't necessarily keep him from antagonizing them anyway.

          Buck broke the silence.  Gone was the pleading for understanding.  The voice was low, hard, and deadly.  "You forget who we're talking about here."  The threat in his tone was clear.

          Ezra typed faster.  Dumb move.  Chris was not likely to respond well to threats.  Not even for Buck, to whom, in Ezra's opinion, the man sometimes gave a shocking amount of professional leeway.

          Larabee's voice, when it responded, was colder and harder than Buck's.  "And you forget who you're talking to."

          Ezra's eyes jerked toward the office.  For a split second, he was certain that Buck was going to deck Chris—the kind of punch that was meant to do some damage.  Chris braced visibly.  And sitting in his chair at a safe distance, so did Ezra. 

          But Buck didn't hit him. 

          "You son of a bitch," Buck growled out instead.  And this time, unlike all the other times Ezra had heard him call Chris by that particularly overused epithet, which was apparently useful in fun, in fondness, in frustration, and even in admiration, this time it certainly sounded like Buck meant it.  And not in a good way.

          Ezra flicked his eyes hurriedly back to his computer as Buck came storming out of the office.  He grabbed his jacket and disappeared from the team bullpen, leaving Chris still standing behind his office desk, fists clenched.  Buck was at the elevator by the time Ezra wondered if Chris was even going to order him to stop—as if it would have done any good.

          A moment later Ezra realized that maybe Chris had no intention of telling Buck to stop. 

          Maybe he was going to let Buck hang himself this time. 

          Or maybe Chris really thought it was a good idea for Buck to take another look. 

          Ezra wasn't likely to find out either way.  And neither was Buck.

          Buck was right about one thing, Ezra reflected, Chris Larabee could be a stone cold bastard.

          And, Ezra supposed, that might be what it took to ride herd on his clabbered-together team of misfits. 

          Ezra thought Chris would make a similar exit from the bullpen.  But he didn't.  Ezra watched from the corner of his eye, as Chris appeared to make a rather long inhale through his nose before sitting down behind his desk and picking up a pencil.  He unclenched his fists, rolled his shoulders back and turned his attention to the papers on his desk. 

          Chris did not close his door either. 

          Ezra had to give him credit for that. 

          The last thing anyone needed now was for J.D. to wander back from the lawyer the ATF sent him to and find another door closed in his face.  Or for any other member of the team to look at the Team Leader's closed door and decide to go it on their own the way Buck just did.

          As if that wasn't going to come back and hit them all in the face, Ezra mused sardonically. 

          A pencil snapped in Chris Larabee's hand. 

          A few moments later, Nathan came cautiously through the bullpen doorway.  He and Ezra exchanged a glance full of meanings but neither man put those meanings into words.  Nathan sat down and picked up his work where he left off, as silently as he had come in.

 

 

 

          Beyond Chris's door, it was so silent in their bullpen that he could hear the tapping of their keyboards.  No one was talking.  Not even Ezra Standish—and that was saying something.  He shouldn't have been surprised.  It had been getting progressively quieter and quieter out there over the last three days.

          At first, the tight-lipped quiet had been masked by a flutter of activity.  Searching for the hoped-for missing weapon, or for surveillance that nobody had, or for ballistics reports that were typically slow in coming until Assistant Director Travis had bellowed in someone's ear.  But the ballistics reports hadn't helped their position any.

          The members of Team Seven were manning their battle stations now.  They were circling the wagons.  They were battening down the hatches, and they were bracing for impact.  Everyone else in the building knew it, too.  It was exactly what they would do in Team Seven's position. 

          Of course, everyone else in the building was glad not to be in Team Seven's position.  Just like every agent in the building was glad not to be in J.D.'s position.  Every agent, except possibly Buck Wilmington, who was perhaps the only fool in the world who'd reverse time, if he could, and put himself inside that convenience store just to save J.D. some pain.  Chris knew that, too.

          And it didn't help.

 

 

 

 

          J.D. waited in another, smaller, carpeted waiting room to tell his story to one more person.  In the last few days, he must have spoken to a dozen or more people he hadn't really wanted to have to speak to.  First there was Chris, arriving on the scene right on Buck's heels.  J.D. had begun a verbal report, but Chris held up his hand and told him to think it over real carefully before he said anything.  Then Buck sat beside him in the back door of an ambulance bay, quietly, unofficially asking him how it happened.  J.D. had watched the ambulances and the police, swarming investigators, and dimly, past the too-bright flashing lights of police and EMS vehicles, the shadows of uniformed officers asking people to stay beyond the hastily thrown up barricade.  There was sobbing and a guttural moaning sound. 

          Slowly, very slowly, J.D. began to tell Buck what had happened, how it had happened, what _they_ did and what _he_ did.  But when he looked up, what he saw in his friend's face seemed to condemn him.

          "Dammit, Kid," Buck had blurted out.  "Didn't I tell you a hundred times…"

          The opening of the big wooden office door drowned out the memory of Buck impressing on him something he should have known, something he should have done, something that might have made the entire incident go away, but far too late to make a difference. 

          _The incident._   That's what they all called it.  _The incident.  The event._   _The issue.  It._ All nice clean terms that helped him avoid saying it out loud.  And God how he had avoided making himself come right out and say it.  "I shot a civilian.  I shot a boy."  Three of them, in fact.  And was that worse than just one?  Or was just one enough to damn him?

          He stood up and swallowed. 

          The assistant in the blue suit ushered him into the office of a diminutive woman named Reesa Connors.  She sat in an impressively large leather chair behind an impressively large wooden desk.  She rose up to introduce herself and shake his hand, a perfunctory and capable shake.  Then she gestured to a smaller leather chair drawn up across the desk from her, straightened her impeccable suit and sat down again.  She folded her manicured hands beneath her chin and regarded him a moment, while he tried hard not to twitch, or jiggle, or twist and turn in his chair. 

          This was his legal counsel.  Specifically arranged for him by the ATF.  Travis had assured him at least twice that she was very good or she wouldn't have been selected.  Chris had told him that he had dealt with her before on several very different occasions and he found her to be smart, informed, and highly capable. 

          J.D. hadn't bothered to ask whether Chris had dealt with her over something like this.  Partly because he was afraid Chris would say no.  And partly because he was afraid Chris would say yes.  Either option was equally bad. 

          If Chris said no, then J.D. would have to face the fact that no one else on his team had ever made a mess like this for themselves, which was likely.  If Chris said yes, then Chris should have had more advice and counsel to offer and was choosing, instead, to keep it to himself.  And J.D. couldn't come up with any reasons why Chris would do that didn't mean something even worse.

          He stared glumly at the degrees on the wall behind Reesa Connors' head and waited for her to offer something other than that long, appraising stare.

          "So," she said after a moment.  "I won't beat around the bush.  You're here because in a firefight three days ago, you shot three minors, and it presently appears that one may have been a bystander.  Am I correct?"

          And there it was, stated simply and right out loud.  No pretty terms.  Just the facts of the matter. 

          Connors nodded, as if he were taking some sort of oral exam and got the first answer right.  She leaned back in her chair.  "I have a lot of questions," she said. 

          J.D. nodded.

          "I need you to answer them to the best of your ability.  I need to know the truth whether it is good, bad, or indifferent.  I'll let you know if it's irrelevant.  I'll let you know if it's good.  But if it's bad, then I need to know it, so I can help you through this mess.  You understand?"

          He nodded again.

          "Good," she said and smiled, but something hard as steel glinted in her deep brown eyes.  "Don't jerk me around, Agent," she said, her tone hard.  "Because I'm your best hope right now.  And if you screw this up, you're on your own."

          In that second she sounded so much like Larabee that J.D. didn't know whether to gulp or grin.  He managed to do neither one.  Just felt suddenly much more confident that Reesa Connors would know what to do, no matter how bad this got.

          He gave her his solemn promise to tell her all he could.  Truthfully, he had never thought to do otherwise. 

          Then she smiled again, satisfied that she had made her point.  She flipped open a very fat folder on her desk and found the page she was looking for. 

          "Let's go over the events," she said.  "From your point of view." 

          J.D. took a deep breath and began to tell it all again.

 

 

          In the last two days, Chris had been in and out and in and out and in again to the 13th floor assistant directors' offices more times than he cared to count.  He'd been chewed out by the director of the lab who didn't like the way he spoke to his technicians in ballistics.  He had been threatened by two other Assistant Directors, who told Travis that if he didn't rein Larabee in, they would.  He had been strongly advised by his own senior chain of command on several points now, not least of which included Agent Dunne's duty status. 

          And then there was Travis.  It was Travis who gave him stark realism, the view from the top of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and his unvarnished, unadulterated opinion and suggestions.  Travis, who was handling God only knew how much flak from other AD's over Chris's point blank refusal to confiscate J.D.'s badge and gun until the shooting could be ruled on.  And no matter how stubbornly he refused to acknowledge it, Chris knew damn well how it looked in the papers—and how much worse it got each day the papers continued to report the fruitlessness of their investigation at the crime scene and on the growing public discontent.  It was entirely conceivable that Travis alone was single-handedly holding the directors above him from coming crashing down on Chris and his team. For this, Chris was grateful, but there was still precious little to offer relief.

          He had bargained, pushed, cajoled, coaxed, threatened, wheedled, and outright begged every second of delay and search time that he was bound to get.  He managed to get the search extended two more days—over Travis's good advice, stretching Travis's willingness to accommodate him, using any favors he had left with the crime scene boys and girls, pissing off the AD's for Teams Three and Twelve respectively, and letting two or three active cases get that much colder on Team Seven's collective desks.

          There was no gun. 

          Ostensibly the team was working on those cases that were getting cold. 

          Chris was aware of his professional obligation to go out into the bullpen to see what they were really doing.  But he wasn't sure he really wanted to know.  He was tempted to go down to the crime scene and kick a reporter in the teeth.  But that would probably look bad.  He considered drinking another large cup of bad coffee as the safest next move.

          But the phone rang.

          In the outer office, Vin Tanner and Ezra Standish heard the muffled swearing.  A few feet farther away, Josiah Sanchez and Nathan Jackson only heard the clatter of Chris's phone being sideswiped off his desk.

          Chris said nothing to them as he stormed from his office like a nasty-tempered tornado.  They heard the stairwell door slam open. 

          "He took the stairs," Nathan remarked.

          "Yes," Standish drawled.  "The elevator is apparently too slow for his purposes."

          "He keeps doin' stairs like he is, an' he's gonna tear a muscle."  Tanner observed, never looking up from his desk.

          "Better he take it out on the stairs, than on us," Josiah Sanchez offered sagely from his own desk.

          "Amen to that," Jackson replied, as Ezra and Vin both nodded their heads in agreement.

          And in the absence of Chris and Buck both, the tension in the air eased just a fraction.

 

 

          Upstairs was a different story, however.  Walter Brennerman, Senior Site Supervisor for the Crime Scene Unit had clearly already given Assistant Director Orin Travis an earful of his problem by the time Larabee brushed his way past the secretary and into the office itself.

          Travis was holding the bridge of his nose.

          "Here he is," Brennerman said, frustrated sarcasm falling off his tongue.  "Ask him."

          "Ask me what?" Chris hedged, but his eyes glittered at Brennerman like a snake eyeing a juicy rat. 

          "Gentlemen," Travis intoned, fingers still clutching the bridge of his nose.

          He raised a hand to silence Brennerman and then lifted his head to look at Larabee appraisingly.  "Did we not agree this morning that it was time to wrap up the scene?"

          Chris never shifted his gaze from Brennerman's face.  "We did," he said, and Travis noted that the tone was less than conciliatory.

          "Three days we've been looking," Brennerman repeated, turning to make his case toward Travis and avoid the unnerving glare leveled at his head.  "There's no gun.  There are no weapons unaccounted for.  There are no bullets not identified.  We were asked to look for ricochet.  There's no evidence of a ricochet.  We were asked to look for any surveillance footage.  The film from the security camera at the store provides no evidence of a third gun.  We've gone over it twice, three times, four times.  We spent an entire extra day looking."

          He sent a sidelong glare at Larabee before pointedly telling Travis, "And we can look another ten, fifteen, or forty times and it's not going to change the evidence."

          "So wrap up the scene," Travis said impatiently.  He was speaking to Brennerman, but his sharp gaze was directed at Chris.

          Brennerman's face screwed up in frustration.  "As soon as Larabee calls off his agent, we can do just that, sir."

          Travis's hard stare turned somewhat surprised.

          A number of swear words rushed right up to the tip of Chris's tongue.  But he didn't open his mouth.  He looked back at Travis with as ignorant a stare as he could manage. 

          "My agent?"  he inquired, hedging.  Not like he didn't know damn well which agent was down at the crime scene, grasping at straws in full view of passersby, reporters, cameramen and curious civilians with nothing else to do.

          Brennerman looked at Chris as if he wanted to strangle him, which was probably nearly the case.

          "Your agent," Brennerman growled, "Wilmington, who is currently running around my crime scene, interfering with my crew, and keeping us from finishing up our job."

          Chris's eyes narrowed.  He did not ask what "interfering" meant.  He supposed if Buck had actually hit someone for trying to pack up, Brennerman would have mentioned that straight off.  Still, "interfering" could come in many shapes and sizes where Buck was concerned.  God damn him.

          Chris kept his seething carefully contained.

          Brennerman lowered his voice and turned back to Travis.  "We all understand the issue," he said.  "We've worked as hard as we know how.  The evidence just isn't there to find."

          "We understand," Travis said succinctly.  He put his hands on his desk and rose to his full height.  "Have your team finish up.  Agent Larabee will take Agent Wilmington in hand."

          Chris felt the back of his neck burn, as Travis calmly showed Brennerman the door.  Taking Agent Wilmington "in hand" was _his_ decision.  _His_ call.  He glared at Travis.

          Travis was not impressed.  He didn't say anything until he returned to his desk.  Collecting his thoughts, Chris knew. 

          "We discussed this," Travis stated.  His voice was calm, but Chris could hear the strain beneath. 

          "Yes, sir," Chris replied.  He was dimly aware of having pulled himself up to his full height.  Standing at attention.  Standing Captain's mast for disciplinary infractions.  Like his body still knew exactly what to do, despite the intervening years since he had left the Navy.

          "I thought we came to an agreement," Travis said, his tone implying much more threat than his words.

          "Yes, sir," Chris responded.

          Travis glowered at him, fingers splayed on the desktop to bear the weight of those broad shoulders leaning threateningly across the desk toward Chris.

          "Then why is Wilmington down there?" he asked between his teeth, and Chris considered, not for the first time, what it must have been like to have been in Travis's court room back when he was just a judge.

          He was not intimidated.  But he was aware that Travis was doing a damn sight more than most to support J.D., to support the team, to support Chris himself.  And he knew, like he seldom had cause to realize, just how much they all needed Travis in their court right now. 

          He tried to choose his words carefully, but he had run out of patience a long time ago.  "What did you expect him to do?" Chris retorted.  Buck could be as predictable as night following day—if you knew him well enough.  What else would Buck be doing but trying to help out his friend, his teammate, his surrogate brother?  Whether it was a smart idea or not didn't come into it.  Buck's heart was almost always in the right place but that place wasn't always wired to his brain.  Of course, Chris didn’t mention that to Travis.  If you know Buck Wilmington well enough, you knew already knew that.

          Travis's voice was cold, hard, and deadly when he answered.  "I expect Agent Wilmington to follow your orders, Agent Larabee," he snarled. 

          The dark grey eyebrows came down together like thunderheads piling up in a still summer sky, and the insinuation was not lost on Chris that Travis, like Brennerman, believed Chris had sent Buck down there to delay the closing of the crime scene, to take one last look, to second-guess the crime scene crew one more time.  It would be pointless for Chris to explain that he had not.  Because maybe in some small way he had.  He sure as hell hadn’t lifted a finger to stop him.

          "Do I make myself clear, Agent Larabee?" Travis growled. 

          "Perfectly," Chris replied, as coolly as he knew how. 

          "Get Wilmington back here.  In this building.  In your bullpen.  And under control," Travis ordered.  "I don't care if you have to knock him out and drag him back here.  Just do it."

          "Yes, sir," Chris replied, his tone anything but conciliatory.

          Travis stopped him as he turned to leave.  "I don't have to tell you," he said, still snarling, but his voice gone quieter now. "If you don't get control of your agents, the brass will."

          Travis was right when he said he didn't have to tell Chris that.  Higher ups had been itching to rein them in for years.  And didn't this whole fiasco just provide the perfect opening?  Travis was right, too, that Buck wasn't helping matters.

          But getting Buck back was a whole other issue.

          He didn't tell Travis that either.  He simply gave a toothy, "Oh, I understand, perfectly."

          Travis didn't feel at all optimistic about the immediate future as he watched Chris leave as brusquely as he came in. 

 

 

 

 

          It did not surprise Buck Wilmington to see that, indeed, someone had come to fetch him, to bring him back to the bullpen.  What did surprise Buck was who he saw passing through the crime scene tape and coming calmly toward him. 

          Time was, Buck reflected, rising from where he was minutely examining a scratch on a nearby fire hydrant, since he had been ejected from the actual crime scene within the store, that Chris would have had the balls to come himself, not send someone to do his dirty work for him. 

          He brushed his hands on his black ATF jacket as he turned to face the man coming toward him.

          "Ezra," Buck greeted him flatly. 

          It wasn't exactly a warm welcome, but it wasn't exactly hostile either, so, Ezra decided, so far so good.

          Ezra slipped his own hands placidly inside the pockets of his long, non-official, ATF-logo-less raincoat.  "Buck," he returned calmly and stood facing his teammate, waiting.  Buck was not stupid, after all.  He would know exactly why Ezra was here.

          "Chris send you to bring me back?" Buck asked, the way his lips twisted almost into a sneer told Ezra exactly what Buck thought about that.

          Ezra was not stupid either.  He knew when to go into deeper cover and he knew when to abort.  He had done his homework on his teammates a long time ago, and he made it a point to know where each of them stood on the chessboard, no matter what the game was.  So he smiled enigmatically and told the truth. 

          "Yes."

          The sneer turned into a grudging and all-too-fleeting glimmer of a smile.

          Ezra shrugged.  "He figured I'd be the least likely to arouse your suspicions."

          Buck's lips curved up a little higher in recognition of Ezra's betrayal of the truth—although the smile was not what Ezra would call reassuring.  He simply waited patiently for Buck to decide what he wanted to do with that information.

          Buck regarded Ezra silently for a beat, mulling over his teammate's unusual candor.  He could concede easily enough that Chris was probably right about that.  The way Chris and Vin were joined practically at the hip these days, he doubted Vin would have gotten even this far.  Nathan and his self-righteousness were more than he could stand right now, and the last thing he wanted today was wise words of advice, psychobabble, or God forbid, a sermon from Josiah.  Chris could have come down here himself, and forcibly dragged him back to the office.  But Buck would have offered his best resistance, at which he was no slouch, and there would definitely have been blood. 

          All of that, he reflected, flicking his eyes toward the yellow tape and the blue barriers, would have made a nice show for the voyeurs and some good pics for the front page.

          Ezra followed the flick of Buck's gaze to the barriers and tape that cordoned off the area, and beyond that to several reporters, who had been taping from their staked out spots for two days, a clot of photographers pressing against the barriers, and a number of unidentified people who probably had no business being here but were craning their necks or straining to get some part of their faces into a camera shot, or worse, invoking their right to be heard, looking for their fifteen minutes of fame by offering up their dubiously considered opinions on this terrible tragedy in their community.

          Ezra looked at Buck and wondered what he was seeing.   Then he turned back again and considered the milling people once again before taking a silent deep breath.  It had occurred to him that Chris had sent him precisely because he'd spent so much damn time creating the impression that he was as likely to not do what Chris Larabee told him to do, as to actually deign to follow orders.  He chalked it up to some perverse self-defeating flaw in his character, this need to show other people that he was still an independent operator and that he could be trusted only to act in his own best interest. 

          Chris basically regarded it as a load of crap—and gave Ezra more hell than he had ever taken from any other person when this attitude occasionally came back to bite both of them in the ass.  But for the most part Ezra's hard work paid off.  People tend to believe what you want them to.  And occasionally his carefully crafted pretenses even came in handy with his own teammates, when they were too preoccupied to think too hard. 

          He should feel guilty about manipulating his friends, he knew.  But at the moment he didn't.  There was too much at stake.  And besides, he was good at it, and he was pretty sure that was another reason Chris asked him to come down here.  He had a job to do.  And he would use the many tools he had at his disposal to get it done.  Ironically, at the moment, the best tool to accomplish his task, appeared to be the truth—applied judiciously, of course.

          "I wonder if it has occurred to our fearless leader yet, that keeping this crime scene open the last two days has only fed the media circus," he drawled, letting no small note of disgust creep into his voice.  Let Buck decide who the disgust was for, Larabee and his "I Know Everything" attitude, or the various piranhas of the local and national press. 

          Buck turned his head only far enough to regard Ezra from the corner of his eye.

          Ezra did not give any sign that he had noticed.  Instead he added, irritatedly, "Not like the sight of all these personnel still crawling around a crime scene days after the fact plays right into their insinuations that law enforcement is just protecting itself instead of the public it's supposed to serve." 

          He jerked one hand reflexively at the members of said public just beyond the barriers, a dismissive, belittling gesture that he had perfected so long ago it was like second nature.  He realized only belatedly that he hoped no one had caught that on film.

          He continued on without waiting for a response.  "Of course, Chris won't have to account for the expense of keeping all these people on scene himself, so I'm sure it won't matter."  Truth to tell, he could work himself into a nice little snit over that one, if he thought about it.  The miserly bean counters in the Accounts Payable Office questioned every last niggling item he put in _his_ expense reports, yet no one was likely to lift an eyebrow at the mere _thousands_ of taxpayer dollars the ATF was spending right here to find a gun, the existence of which was growing more dubious by the minute. 

          He winced.  He needed to remember the "agent involved" was one of their own.  Not a mere colleague.  A teammate.  A friend, if you had to get technical about it.  Even now he could hear his mother's poison-tipped southern tongue sweetly drawling out, "Ezra, dear, when will you learn that sentimentality is a trap?  Relationships are messy entanglements we can't afford."

          He winced again.  Since when did friendship turn into "messy entanglements." 

          He turned his thoughts back to Chris Larabee and damned him soundly for sending him down here to push, pull, pry, lure, and otherwise manipulate a teammate away from this crime scene.  Consigning Chris to eternal flames had the benefit of making Ezra feel more properly directed.  He turned to face Buck and returned to the task at hand.

          "The talking heads and the media, will of course, all have something to say about the hypocrisy of law enforcement putting itself above the law," Ezra said with a derisive snort.  "The hypocrisy is they don't give a damn how this turns out.  They're only here because they've still got something to look at.  As soon as we leave, we'll be yesterday's news."

          He turned and wandered back away from the edge of the sidewalk and back to the building, not waiting for Buck to follow him.

          "Forgotten," he continued, without looking back.  "Relegated to some back column, a paragraph space on page eleven."

          He stopped at the edge of the shattered glass door to the drugstore. 

          "If they still write about it at all," he added in afterthought. 

          Shards still glittered on the concrete, as if illuminating the lurid stain where one of the bodies had fallen.  He gazed down at the glass, twinkling like so many tarnished stars.  This time he was waiting.  Waiting for Buck act-first-think-about-it-later-especially-when-I'm-protecting-my-friends Wilmington to put the pieces together.  Ezra knew he would, with proper direction.  After all, he reminded himself, Buck was not stupid, just impulsive—and at present, very worried. 

          It took a moment or two, but sanity prevailed, and Buck ambled up next to him.

          "Let's go then," Buck said.  He jerked his head back toward the crime scene unit, as they continued to pack up around him, or stood, blatantly waiting for him to get out of their way.  "The sooner we get out of here, the sooner the crime scene guys can pack up this show."

          Ezra nodded.  Precisely.  He knew Buck could be made to see reason.  It just took delicacy, subtlety.  After all, Chris had picked him for a reason.  Still, Ezra did not change his disgruntled and irritated demeanor as he walked side by side back to Buck's car.  He had had to circle a nearby block twice to find a spot near enough to Buck to make it look coincidental if necessary.  The assignment nearly finished, now all Ezra had to do was make sure Buck was headed back to the office.

          Ezra looked at his watch and gave a dramatic sigh. 

          "You don't suppose he'd care if we stopped for some decent coffee, do you?" he asked, giving Buck a hopeful glance. 

          Buck laughed for the first time in two days.  "Who cares?" he asked, clapping Ezra on the back.  "Long as you're buying."

          Ezra's eyes widened only fractionally at the suggestion, but he gritted his teeth, metaphorically, and grudgingly agreed.  He'd just work on Chris later to shell out the money this was costing him in parking fees and caffeine.

          He watched Buck get into his truck and then followed him toward Starbuck's and the federal building.  Mission accomplished, he thought with satisfaction.  He only wished their other problems could be resolved so easily.

 

 

          Buck and Ezra returned to a half-empty bullpen, occupied by the three men who had been left to hold down the fort. 

          Ezra did not have to ask where Chris was.  It was a certain bet that he was where he had been all morning, and most of yesterday, and a good chunk of the day before:  Upstairs, where the classic conundrum of the irresistible force meeting the immovable object was being played out in the offices of successively higher members of ATF command.  Of course Ezra knew that in reality, physics precluded the existence of both an irresistible force _and_ an immovable object in the same universe.  And knowing that, Ezra wondered with a curious mixture of dread and suspense whether it would be the irresistible force or the immovable object that would have to give.  

          Buck showed no outward inclination that he was pondering anything even remotely as philosophical in nature.  He also showed no inclination to work on their outstanding cases.  He shoved the folders roughly aside, opened up his browser and began scanning the day's news transcripts and articles, all featuring the shooting by the "as yet unnamed federal agent."  And even though Buck said nothing, it did not take someone with great people-reading skills to feel the temperature around his desk growing icier and icier even as the flush around Buck's collar grew hotter and hotter. 

          Ezra exchanged one glance with Vin Tanner, and that glance alone was enough to tell him Vin was already deep in his foxhole and ready to duck and cover when the bomb came down.  Wise man, Vin Tanner. 

          Ezra began planning his exit strategy. 

 

 

 

          Upstairs, Travis's office was full to bursting with people Chris did not want to see—in addition to AD Travis himself, glowering even harder and more darkly than he had been earlier.  They had left one empty chair for Chris to sit in.  As they closed the office door behind him, they gave instructions to Travis's assistant that they would be in conference for some time.

          "For some time" was open to interpretation.  And Chris suspected it meant until he could be made to see reason—their brand of reason.  He waited until introductions were made.  In addition to Travis, there were two directors:  Director Hofstader, whom he knew; and another one that Chris had seen but never met.  There were also a representative from Internal Affairs, a lawyer for the ATF, and a spin doctor from PR. 

          No lawyer for the defense, Chris noted sardonically.  Of course not.  Because Buck had _advised_ J.D. to call the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association _just in case_ he _might_ need a lawyer instead of flat out telling him to get a laywer, which let J.D. think that maybe he might not have to resort to that because he didn't really do anything wrong.  Kind of like he ignored Chris's advice to make an appointment to get some real counseling besides the mandatory "Go see the bureau shrink because you shot someone" memo.  Of course, Chris wasn't strictly allowed to make further counseling an actual requirement until it became a matter of job performance and taking J.D.'s badge and gun.  J.D. balked at the idea of seeing a shrink, so he didn't make that appointment either.  J.D. was too shaken up to be thinking quite that straight. 

          Chris got his own thinking straight the moment he looked around at Travis's office.  And before taking his assigned seat, he asked for a legal representative from the FLEOA to be present in the meeting.  The ATF's laywer had the nerve to try to tell him that would just take up more valuable time.  Chris sure as hell hoped that turned out to be true because he, J.D., and all of Team Seven really needed the time to figure out what to do next. 

          Chris had to give them credit for being efficient.  While they all waited for the lawyer to arrive, they used the time to prod, coax, cajole, push, pressure, and even threaten him.  They informed him how enthusiastically the vultures in the journalism field had latched onto the shooting of "a teenage bystander" by "a federal agent, whose name has not been released." They informed him with videotape, with audiotape, with live broadcast from CNN, with freshly inked newspapers, and with every piece of media they could slap convincingly onto Travis's desktop, that the press was aware that "no action" had been taken yet, , and that, depending on which radio stations a person listened to, "the agent involved has been suspended from duty, pending the investigation into the fatal shooting" apparently didn't constitute action. 

          They told him in the most exact of terms how bad this situation was for public relations.  It did not play well with the community that first a white federal agent had shot an unarmed teenage boy in a convenience store in the boy's own neighborhood, and now the ATF had hardly exacted even the minimal possible actions against him.  This was simply a matter of procedure.  It wasn't a witch hunt.  

          They reminded him how important community support is important to effective law enforcement.  They impressed upon him how hard the law enforcement community in general, and the ATF in particular—after their very conspicuous failure at Waco, Texas—had worked and continued to work to build and re-build their image as servants and protectors of the public interests.  They told him again how this incident affected more people than just J.D. Dunne, or Team Seven, or even the families of the injured parties.  There were larger stakeholders to consider. 

          They told him all of this as if he had been in a coma or on another planet for the last three days and was not aware of what had happened on his team, to his agent, or how it sounded in the press.  Their clean, vanilla terminology stuck hard in his craw.  "The agent involved" was J.D. Dunne.  He had a name and a reputation and hopes and dreams for his future.  The "injured parties" had names, too.  Radim Taylor and Kyle Lebec had certainly had guns.  Taylor, all of 16 years old, had a bullet in his chest and a drawer in the morgue.  Lebec, only 15, had not regained consciousness and was not expected to.  It was Tyson Morton who was the focus of all this trouble.  Tyson, who had no gun that anyone could find evidence of. Tyson who was supposed to have a birthday in three weeks.  He would be turning 15—if he made it—a kid who Chris was pretty sure had some dreams for his future, too. 

          Chris was only too well aware —even without the newspaper and video images the media assaulted him with morning noon and night—that Tyson Morton also had a mother.  And she, no doubt, had her own dreams and hopes for her boy's future.  Right now those hopes had likely been reduced to a simple prayer for her boy's life. 

          It galled Chris to know that the ATF was talking image and public relations, stakeholders and spin, when this was really about people.  No matter what they said about simple matters of procedure, it was far from a simple matter.  Clearly the public at large wanted to see punitive action, or at least a semblance of disciplinary action, long before the agent's actions were conclusively shown to warrant discipline.  So, the Bureau concluded, just take his badge and gun away.  Just temporarily.  Just so the public can see that we take this seriously.  He'll still be suspended with pay.  What's the big deal?

          Chris clenched his jaw so hard, he could feel his teeth protesting.  Ironically, at least in Chris's mind, if any of the people in this room could have seen J.D.'s face at the prospect of being sent home for the next several days, they might have realized that suspension from duty was already pretty damn punitive for Dunne.  Until Chris had been shown that J.D. Dunne had acted inappropriately, he was not about to ask him for his badge and gun.  To do that would be to say that he was no longer one of them.  No longer part of the team.  Guilty until proven innocent. 

          How was he supposed to spin that in any way that J.D. wouldn't hear and understand as "The ATF doesn't believe your story.  And I don't believe it either"? 

          There was already a whole division dedicated to spin and public relations.  They could worry about the ATF's relations with the people at large.  He had team relations to worry about.

          Christ, he'd already caught enough hell for putting the gun J.D. used that day into evidence.  Not from J.D., of course, who swallowed everything he was thinking and feeling in one huge gulp and handed his gun over with a dignity that made Chris's chest cramp. 

          No, it was Buck who gave him hell.  As if there were any kind of choice.  As if Buck would have somehow found a better way to collect J.D.'s gun.  Like that famous Buck Wilmington charm could somehow smooth this over.  Like Chris should have somehow come up with some other way to collect a gun for evidence. 

          Chris scowled.  He was well aware there were no real choices here, either.  Eventually, they would probably demand the confiscation of J.D.'s badge and gun.  But damned if he couldn't squeeze out as much wiggle room in the rules as possible, carving out a space and a delay with the brute force of simple obstinacy.  Chris was frankly surprised he'd gotten by this long, but he refused to budge until they forced him.  Forcing him was only a matter of time, and he knew it, but he also knew it wouldn't happen right at this moment.  So he resolved to tie a knot and keep hanging on. 

          By the time the representative arrived from the FLEOA arrived, the atmosphere in Travis's office was deteriorating rapidly.  Dressed in a suit, and carrying a well-worn briefcase, the new arrival did not close the door or sit down.  He simply looked through his small round spectacles at the other people in the room, calmly stated that he understood the basics of the case, and would prefer to meet with the agent whose career was currently under siege before entering into any kind of conversation regarding how the ATF would like to proceed.  Turning to go, he paused and looked back once to ask if the ATF had provided their agent with a lawyer and would they be so kind as to send him said lawyer's contact information to his office. 

          He left silence in his wake, and Chris gratefully added one more mental tally mark in J.D.'s allies column.  Not that it tilted the scales much, but it helped. 

          Of course it didn't help Chris much. 

          Perhaps he had been too swept up in his moment of minor surprise and gratitude for the arrival of a FLEOA representative who actually seemed to have both brains and balls intact because, although he was aware that he was under siege and surrounded with no reinforcements on the way and in danger of having all supply lines cut off, he did not see the two-pronged attack until both missiles were incoming. 

          On his left, Internal Affairs reiterated that no gun had been found in the extensive—and expensive—three-day search at the crime scene.  It was now necessary to open an official investigation and therefore, time for Senior Agent Larabee to do his duty and order Agent Dunne to hand over his badge.  She informed everyone present that Internal Affairs had extended all the patience they could in this matter and were going to open their official investigation, with or without Team Seven's cooperation.  Warning words directed specifically at Chris about obstruction buzzed in his ears like so many mosquitoes, as did a none-too-subtle reminder that there was no need for any other agents to get stupid either.  After all, this was simply standard procedure, she said, and the opening of an investigation does not imply that the party will be found guilty of misconduct. 

          Chris's hands gripped the arms of his chair until the knuckles turned white, the skin pulled so tightly over the bones that it was a wonder it didn't split.  For people so concerned about image and spin, Chris sincerely doubted the agent from IA really believed her own words.  Just the whiff of IA sniffing around gave almost any agent unfortunate enough to have attracted their attention the air of being tainted.  Even when no official investigation was opened, the suspicion hung in the air long after IA went sniffing somewhere else. 

          Just ask Standish.  The FBI in Atlanta practically drummed him out of their ranks based on a campaign of rumors and lies.  Denver and the ATF were supposed to be a fresh start.  And it was, as well as it could be when even half a continent away, here in Denver, there were FBI and other federal agents who suspected that Ezra Standish might be on the take or would be as soon as someone made him a tempting enough proposition. 

          Chris didn't have time to say any of that, though, or to respond to IA's pronouncement in any way because on his right, the PR division launched their attack, their demands dovetailing nicely with IA's, as if they had planned it all out earlier.  The representative from PR, who was far too shiny looking and seemed far too impressed with himself for Chris's taste, declared that once Agent Dunne's badge had been handed over, they would be able to move forward to counter the increasingly negative press coverage.  They could issue a statement, but it would be better to hold a press conference. 

          The PR rep went on, looking at the two directors, who began a perfunctory discussion weighing the pros and cons of releasing the agent's name, and Chris had a sudden, violent urge to remind them that "the agent" had a name and a reputation, that he was a person of flesh and blood, one of their own, and not just some statistic in a file somewhere. 

          A covert look at Travis showed him to be glowering down at the top of his desk, his forearms pressed across the width of the blotter, his hands tightly folded together, as if forming one large fist.  He said nothing.  Apparently, Chris deduced, Travis's role was simply to be a witness at the execution, to be able to sign off that it was discharged properly.  It crossed his mind that at least in the old days a man was given a blindfold and a cigarette. 

          The PR rep went on, confirming and clarifying what actions were to be taken next and how to spin it to the press.  The directors went on nodding.  Travis went on witnessing, his face growing darker. 

          And Chris made a decision.  Silence fell instantly across the room as he rose from his seat.  The PR rep's voice trailed off.  Travis raised stony grey eyes. 

          It was only a few steps from his chair to the door, and Chris headed right for it, the stunned silence behind him so complete that for a second he thought he might actually make it into the hallway.  He was nearly in range of the doorknob, when someone finally blurted out a demand to know just where the hell he thought he was going. 

          Chris barely managed to turn and look over his shoulder at the bureaucrats busily discussing how best to spin a horrible tragedy for both a family and one of the few people left for Chris to give a damn about in this world.  But out of respect for Travis, and not least because the former judge had attempted to hold this off long enough that it was riding roughshod over him, too, he turned and spoke to his direct superior, alone. 

          "Sounds like they have everything all decided," he said, his tone clipped, brusque, an unintentional caricature of the certain tone of the discussion of a moment before.  "If you don't need me for anything, I can think of a few more useful places I can be."

          He didn't think it was possible for Travis's brows to lower any farther in the center.  He was wrong about that, too.

          "Sit down," Director Hofstader ordered.

          Chris looked at Travis, whose knuckles had grown substantially whiter in the last thirty seconds.

          Redfaced to the tips of his ears, the other director, who was not even in Chris's chain of command, gladly offered to write Chris up for insubordination and suspend him for several days, should he take another step toward that door.  Worse yet, he seemed to know something about both Chris Larabee and the judicious application of blackmail because in the next breath he told Chris that he was sure he could find someone else to accept Agent Dunne's badge during Chris's suspension.

          Chris's inhale stuck hard in his windpipe, his chest constricting on a white hot lump.  The two little words that had shot to the front of his brain foundered under the roaring in his ears, the sound of blood rushing upward into his head. 

          Travis realized thankfully that it was probably a good thing that Larabee appeared to be temporarily rendered incapable of speaking.  As it might give him time to think about what he was about to say and to whom.  And most importantly, time to think about the consequences of being relieved of duty when his team needed him most. 

          Hazel green eyes, still sparking with anger, turned on Travis like twin sights for a deadly weapon.  Travis glared back.  He didn't really know what it was that Larabee wanted from him.  Someone had to play ball here.  He couldn't help Team Seven if he put himself in an adversarial position with the brass, with IA, and with the PR department.  He didn't have the luxury of getting angry, of riding roughshod over everyone until he got his way, of climbing up on his high horse and declaring himself right and everyone else wrong.  There needed to be some semblance of cooperation from his office, or he would be shut out of the loop completely.  If that happened, if the higher level brass took matters directly into their own hands, Larabee and Team Seven could expect their lives to change swiftly and suddenly for the worse.  Travis was all too aware that he needed to stay in the loop and in the game.  He was the only advocate Team Seven had. 

          Travis wanted to believe that Chris might realize that once he got his hot-tempered head out of his self-righteous ass. 

          Travis didn't say any of that, of course.  He simply adjusted the clasp of his hands to restore circulation and directed Chris toward the chair with a burning glare of his own. 

          Chris's face hardened another two degrees, jaw shifting stubbornly sideways, and the green eyes eloquently demonstrating their disgust, as Chris broke his gaze with Travis, eyes shuttering, blinking away from him as if he had disappeared, only to fasten on a blank space on the wall away from Travis and everyone else—as if they simply were not there. 

          The expression happened so fast, Travis doubted anyone else in the room had even seen it, despite the fact that all eyes were riveted on Larabee.  Hardly an instant later, the Senior Agent's face was calm, glacially cool, frighteningly composed, only the hard intensity of the eyes betrayed anything of Chris's thoughts or feelings. 

          He lowered himself back into his chair, one leg crossed casually over the other and turned that calm face toward the two directors.  The collective sigh of relief was very nearly audible, as if those gathered in Travis's office had thought that Chris would defy them completely, and then they'd be forced to take steps Travis doubted they were completely prepared to take. 

          Travis did not share in their relief.  He knew better.  At least when Chris showed his emotions on his face, a person had a chance to predict which way the man was going to fire and find decent cover.  This frozen façade only predicted trouble that Travis, Team Seven, Larabee himself, and especially J.D. Dunne could ill afford.

          Chris regarded his adversaries coolly.  Clearly, there was going to be no hope of escape until they had finished their little farce of working out a plan that they had quite probably already carefully laid out the structure for well before this meeting.  Presumably the directors were there to provide leverage for strongarming tactics.  The other director in the room Chris still had not placed.  After ordering Chris to sit down under threat of suspension, he did not even deign to look at Chris, sparing any questions he had for Hofstader the PR rep, and, occasionally, Travis. 

          Hofstader was one of several directors that Travis reported to these days.  Chris could unequivocally state that Hofstader was not an idiot.  He was not inclined to be so kind about the others.  But he wisely kept his assessment to himself. 

          They all acted their roles in their little pretense.  It was clear to Chris that the gist of their plan had been laid out cooperatively.  He could hardly believe he needed to be present for working out the details, especially as he already knew they were going to just order him to do what they wanted to anyway, regardless of what he had to say about it.  Had he not been in such deep shit already, he might have enjoyed putting on his best imitation of Ezra Standish's bored face and winding them all up until they were at least as tense as he was.  But unlike Ezra Standish, Chris was clearly conscious of when he had used up the last of his superiors' good graces.  And judging from Travis's face, this was one of those times. 

          There was a moment's pause and Chris seemed to feel the air contract, as too many gazes flicked simultaneously in his direction, the same sudden charge in the atmosphere as the instant a soldier realizes from some subconscious sound that an incoming shell is approaching even when he can't actually see it.  It was a good analogy.  When the air expanded again, the shell exploded in the sound of the words from the talking head from PR.  And like being deafened by an incoming shell, Chris was momentarily struck dumb by the concussive shock.  And even then when the moment passed and he thought he could think clearly again, he still wasn't sure he had really heard what he thought he had heard. 

          Oblivious, PR continued on.  "…once more stringent disciplinary measures have been taken, the Bureau would be in a better position to participate more proactively with the press regarding this case…"

          Apart from Travis, no one seemed to have noticed the way Chris's body abandoned its artificially relaxed pose.  His spine jerked hard at the suggestion that they could take measures to control damage to their image by playing ball with the various elements of the local press.  For a fraction of an instant, the green eyes flew wide open and Chris's hands clamped down again on the arms of the chair they had given him.

          The PR rep began to outline a press conference format that would involve representation from several levels of the bureau but be limited in the scope of the questions that would be fielded by the personnel on the podium.  It wasn't optimal, but it was a start, and he was quite certain the major papers would accept the invitation and its limitations. 

          Travis saw Chris's hands clamp down hard on the arms of the chair, as if he were holding on for dear life.  Then again, perhaps he was, because every other tense line of muscle in his body seemed aligned to catapult him out of the chair, in which case those hands would probably grab onto someone else in the room just as mercilessly—most likely the sorry little bureaucrat who happened to be speaking.  Travis wondered just how fast he would be willing to get up and intervene if that should happen.

          In total ignorance of the danger he faced, the PR rep continued placing people on his precious podium.  He seemed actually shocked when Chris Larabee's voice stated over top of him, firmly, clearly and loudly enough to drown out whatever else was being said in the room, "I'm not going to your press conference."

          The IA rep turned and looked at Chris as if she had forgotten that he was even there.  Hofstader crossed his arms and looked at Travis, the look he got in return telling him that they should have all expected this. 

          Now that he had their attention, Chris seemed to want to be certain they understood.  "I'm not going to a press conference.  I'm not standing on the podium.  And I'm not answering questions from the press."

          Travis's own knuckles turned a shade whiter as he clenched his hands just that much more tightly.  _Stupid, stupid,_ he thought. 

          "If questions are an issue, we can give you a prepared statement," the PR rep offered—a nice, neat standard solution.

          Travis had to give Chris credit that only his eyes moved, leveling a glare at the PR rep that made the man stop involuntarily and swallow audibly. 

          "No," Chris said succinctly. 

          The guy from PR must have been higher up the food chain than Chris suspected because he reared his head back and said with an air of authority that surprised even Chris, "You seem to be under the impression, Agent Larabee, that you have a choice here."

          Travis looked up at Hofstader.  Hofstader looked over at the senior director on his left. 

          PR went on.  "If you had handled this situation with more professional competence, then we wouldn't be discussing this at all. 

          Chris tensed, twitching forward, and Travis felt himself move involuntarily, reflexively, forward in his seat—just in case Chris let go of the chair. 

          The unnamed director held up his hand.  "Enough," he said.

          To Travis's surprise the PR rep shut his mouth immediately, despite the fact that there was obviously much more that he had wanted to say.  Chris didn't say a word.  He didn't have to.  There was no way Larabee was going to back down from either his blatant refusal or his belligerent bearing.

          The senior director looked expectantly at Hofstader, who was distinctly unfazed, and then the two of them looked at Travis.

          Travis pressed his lips tightly together, trying to gather some thoughts that might smooth things over at least for this second.  PR's surprise at Chris's knee-jerk refusal to appear before the press spoke volumes about what they didn't bother to find out.  It should have been patently obvious that Chris was going to refuse.  Travis had informed Hofstader of Chris Larabee's deep-seated—and not entirely unjustified—suspicion of reporters the very moment the ugly discussion of preemptive press conferences had begun to be bandied about the PR division. 

          Larabee's poisonous regard for the press was practically a matter of public record, there for the examining for anyone with half a brain.  The press had made a field day out of the spectacular murder of his wife and child.  They had misquoted him and taken his comments out of context on more than one occasion.  He had been painted as both hero and thug, both—oddly enough—equally abhorrent to the man. 

          Too many times bitten, Larabee had no stomach for the press.  He would not dignify what he saw as the crucifixion of one of his agents by appearing on the platform to witness the statement that the PR division would prepare.  And if they tried to force him, there would be more damage than PR was ready to handle. 

          Travis waited the directors out with gritted teeth and willed someone else to see the handwriting on the wall. 

          At last, someone decided to take the reins.  A very calm, very decided voice inserted itself into the tense atmosphere.  "PR's going to have to go back to the drawing board," it said.

          Everyone's eyes shifted toward the senior director.  The PR rep's face betrayed an indignation he struggled to hide.  IA's expression simply grew a fraction more grim.

          "Agent Larabee isn’t going to appear in front of the press," the director continued, simply, nonconfrontationally, as if stating that Chris would have the flu and would be out that day.  An unapologetic statement of a simple fact. 

          Travis nearly blew out a breath at that and was gratified to see something that looked suspiciously like surprise on Chris's face—with a touch of disbelief on top of it.  Naturally, Larabee had assumed he was in the enemy camp and surrounded.  It wouldn’t occur to him that just maybe the people in the room were not actually arrayed against him.  That in some ways they were on his side. 

          Chris glanced uncertainly toward Travis.  It was all the AD could do not to call him a few choice words right there, starting with paranoid idiot.  Aggravating to think that Larabee might actually have thought that Travis would hang any of his agents out to dry after all the work they'd done together, after all the criminals that Team Seven had pulled off the street?  Did he really think that Travis and Team Seven's chain of command would leave a good agent like J.D. Dunne out in the cold?  Or throw Chris to the wolves of the press corps?  Wouldn't one think that Chris might have learned to play ball by now? 

          Travis didn't say any of that.  Instead, he glowered at his Senior Agent instead and let the slight quirk of an eyebrow do the speaking for him. 

          Chris got the message, bending his posture fractionally toward the back of his chair.  It was at least conciliatory. 

          The lawyer who had been all but forgotten took up the banner of the importance of demonstrating a unified front to the press. 

          Travis snorted derisively.  "Past precedent would support _not_ placing Agent Larabee and the press in the same room," he ground out, throwing a thunderous frown in Chris's direction. 

          The agent from Internal Affairs, coughed suddenly into her hand.  And the senior director's eyes flicked from the surprised lawyer to the PR rep to Travis and then settled on Chris.  If PR could read body language at all, he might have noted that Chris's posture indicated something far more visceral simple obstinance. 

          Apparently PR couldn't really read body language.  Ironic for someone so concerned about perceptions.  He looked somewhat confused as he turned to the IA agent. 

          "Past precedent would suggest that Agent Larabee and journalists don't mix," the IA agent said drily. 

          "That's putting it nicely," Hofstader said gruffly, looking purposefully at his shoes to hide his amusement at IA's succinct summary of Larabee's history in Press Relations.

          Both directors looked at the PR rep expectantly.  He, in turn, cast an unpleasant glance at IA and then at Larabee.  And Travis found it hard to feel sorry for him. 

          Travis resisted the urge to point out to the man that if he had done his job with more professionalism, he wouldn't be in this position. 

          "All right," the man said reluctuantly.  "We'll leave Agent Larabee out of the press conference."  He shrugged, as if was of little consequence.  And perhaps it really was.  The man was only a Senior Agent after all.

          The tension emanating from Larabee seemed to diminish a shade or two, but Travis was pretty sure that didn't mean the man wasn't still planning the fastest way to get out the door.  Truthfully, Travis could hardly blame him for wanting to be elsewhere—or for _needing_ to be elsewhere.  From what Travis could see, damage control in IA and PR was in high gear, but it was nowhere near as intense as damage control downstairs in Team Seven's bullpen.

 

 

          Frank Lawford, attorney, detached himself from the spot where he had been leaning against the wall the moment the agent reached the corridor.  The man came to an abrupt halt.  Definitely on edge, Frank decided. 

          Chris turned to find the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association lawyer standing right behind him, blinking calmly at him.  He wasn't nearly as tall as Chris and between the slight balding and the wire-rimmed glasses, he looked like he would be more at home in a nice paneled legal library than loitering here in the federal building corridor.  Chris forced himself to remember that the FLEOA had finally been called because he had demanded it and that the man was therefore standing here at his own behest, for J.D., who should have called FLEOA two days ago, dammit, before Reesa Connors swooped in and persuaded him to just trust it all to her. 

          For that reason alone, Chris unclenched his jaw just enough to be polite.  Thinly polite, to be sure, but it was the best he could do under the circumstances.

          The man was just as cool under the pressure of Larabee's glower as he had been in a room full of brass, and Chris was glad all over again that he had forced them to make that call

          "Chris Larabee," he said, putting out his hand.

          Frank felt his lips tilt upward in mild amusement.  "Frank Lawford," he replied, "Federal Law Enforcement—"

          That was as far as he got.

          "I know," Larabee interrupted stiffly.  Frank examined the face before him, the lines of tension, a spark of fierce intelligence behind the eyes.  He struck Lawford like a man hunkered down and preparing for a battle he refused to believe he couldn't win.

          "You called me," Lawford said mildly. 

          "I did," Chris answered, feeling his own lips twitch upward.  The man had more stones than he would have given him credit for. 

          Lawford cleared his throat.  "But you are not the agent in trouble," he clarified. 

          The grin that flashed across Larabee's face seemed to indicate otherwise.  "Not that kind of trouble anyway," he said drily. 

          "We'll take the elevator," Larabee said, as if expecting Lawford to simply follow his direction.  And apparently he did, as he did not look to see if Lawford was following as he moved toward an elevator bank up the hall.  "I'll fill you in on the way down," he added, now several steps up the hall.

          Lawford lengthened his stride a little to catch up, following after as expected.  He shook his head a little at that, wondering how many people ever bothered to argue with the man. 

          "J.D.," Chris said the moment his feet breached the bullpen air. 

          J.D. startled, nearly dropping the lunch he hadn't even opened yet.  But he caught himself quickly.  

          Technically Dunne wasn't supposed to be in the building at all, but three days of sitting at home wringing his hands or taking long bike rides to avoid hearing the  same news bites over and over again was all the kid could take.  Chris wasn't surprised when his two-wheeled wandering eventually brought him right back into the heart of the bullpen.  They were the only support group J.D. had.  It would look bad, of course, when Dunne was discovered to be serving his suspension hanging out in the bullpen he had been suspended from.  But Chris wasn't overly inclined to care.

          However, J.D. sitting here attempting to eat lunch with his surrogate big brother did offer an immediate opportunity, so Chris seized it.

          "My office," Chris ordered the young agent, ushering Lawford into the office with his left hand.

          Buck glowered up at Chris from his desk and opened his mouth to speak. 

          Chris kept walking. 

          J.D., moving around the desks toward Chris's doorway, shot a look toward Buck.  A moment later, Buck was right behind J.D., in time to hear Chris introducing Lawford.

          J.D. looked confused.  "I have a lawyer," he said. 

          A sour look twisted Buck's face.  "Connors is the ATF's lawyer," he supplied.

          Chris's glare was a clear warning to get out of the doorway and back to his desk. 

          Buck chose to ignore it.

          J.D. looked from Buck to Chris.  "What do I need another lawyer for?  Ms. Connors thinks she can clear me of misconduct charges."

          Lawford looked at him blandly.  "Will the ATF continue to retain her in the event of a lawsuit?"

          J.D.'s face turned a new shade of white.  "Lawsuit?" he asked.  He stared at Lawford and at Buck and at Chris.  "You mean even if they decide I didn't do anything wrong, I can still get sued?"

          "Yes," Chris answered curtly, and Buck glared daggers at his head for his complete lack of tact. 

          "That's correct," Lawford said.  He looked over Agent Dunne's head at the two men who were engaged in a silent glaring contest.  "Would you gentlemen excuse us?" he asked.

          Larabee blinked at him for a second.  "Of course," he answered after a moment. 

          Buck barely gave enough ground to let Chris leave the office, closing the door behind him. 

          "Conference room," Chris announced, trying his best to ignore Buck's belligerent presence only inches from his shoulder. 

          They did, at least, have to make a pretense of working on their other cases.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

          The room was white.  The walls were white.  The sheets and pillow were all white.  The thin privacy curtain that could be pulled around her son's bed was also white.  The nurses and the doctors and nearly everyone else she saw were white.  And Tyson, her beautiful Tyson, with his soft skin and smooth cheeks, and hair that curled and shone in the sun like black glass, lay against that white pillow growing paler and paler, fading behind eyelids that hid those wide liquid brown eyes. 

          When Tyson was just a toddler, she had taken him to play at a safe playground ten blocks away from that cheap run-down section 8 housing apartment they lived in.  So many young mothers had told her how beautiful his eyes were.  It was nearly a mile to walk there and back.  She couldn't put a number to the times she walked that mile, so he could play in clean, safe surroundings. 

          Shana Morton would have walked to the end of the earth itself to keep him safe from harm.  If only she could have known what was coming when he left their small, clean apartment to meet Ky and his cousin Radim… 

          She should have known.  She was his mother.  Somehow she should have known.

          Instead, for going on three days, she held Tyson's cool, limp hand and talked.  She talked about everything she could think of, important or not.  She asked questions.  She tempted and wheedled.  She ordered and begged and promised. 

          Doctors and nurses came and went and spoke words of comfort and kindness, or cold, clinical detachment but never the words she wanted to hear.  Never that promise or assurance. 

          Between their visits, she talked over the lump in her throat until she felt her voice grow hoarse.  And she looked at her baby. 

          Fifteen years was too short.  He was a good boy.  She had raised a boy with a good heart and she had nurtured it through every rough patch they had hit, through good times and bad, and she remembered how fiercely she had disciplined the boy right in the kitchen, right in front of Ky, not one month ago, how she told him that if he so much as tried to go anywhere before that American History paper was finished, she would track him down and drag his raggedy butt right back home again, and she didn't care one bit whether he was embarrassed in front of his friends or not. 

          She remembered then how Ty had beamed when Ky had said quietly, "Your mom's tough."

          She was a good mom and Ty was a good boy.  Things like this shouldn't happen to good kids.  Or good moms. 

          She had chewed all her nails off in the last three days.  She regarded their ragged edges through eyes so tired and so dry from crying that they burned.  Ty had been proud of how tough she was.  She could be tough now, too.

          She could stop crying and start taking action  For her baby.  For the good boy Ky had been once.  For other good boys and good moms.

          In the bottom of her purse there was a business card from a lawyer.  She didn't particularly like him.  He talked too fast, seemed too smart.  She had told him to get out of her way. 

          She thought about calling him now.

 

 

 

          Most days, Mary Travis loved her job.  She loved investigating the news.  She loved disentangling the truth from webs of lies and cover ups.  She loved exposing wrong-doers to the light of day.  She considered it doing her part in the war on crime and corruption.  She was proud of her reputation as a tough, honest reporter.  Most days.

          On those few and far between days when she had a personal connection to the story she was pursuing, it was harder to love her job.  Today was one of those days. 

          The instant word of the shooting hit their newsroom, her own phone lit up.  Yes, her father-in-law was still an Assistant Director at the ATF.  Yes, she had a casual acquaintance with the ATF agents under his command.  There was no hiding either of those facts.  But she drew the line, she said, at using her acquaintances and her familial relationships to ferret out the name of the agent in question.  It was already known to which agency the agent belonged, as well as which team from that agency.  She would not finish the dirty work for them.  She should have known that would not be the end of it.

          Marty Carlson, the editor in chief, was a mighty hard man to say "no" to.  Not because he was particularly persuasive, though.  It was hard to say "no" to someone who largely refused to hear the word when it was directed at him.  Mary played the only trump cards in her hand.  She reminded him that using her connections this way would not only be marginally unethical, but would also damage her credibility with the various federal law enforcement agencies housed in the nearby federal building, and impede her ability to continue to provide _The Clarion_ with exclusive news and information from her contacts there.  And just in case that didn't prove reason enough to let her wriggle off this particular hook, she also told the man that given her known affiliation with Assistant Director Travis and, by extension, ATF Team Seven, no matter how unbiased her report, once her connections to the agency and the agents involved became public—and they would—any articles she wrote on the matter would be painted as tainted with bias.

          To her surprise, Marty Carlson actually agreed.  Mary would not be the lead reporter on the story.  But he did want her to do just one tiny little piece for the paper _._   A piece so easy, she could do it standing on her head.  They just wanted an interview.  That was all.  And if she couldn't get one with the agent actually involved in the shooting, then perhaps someone in the agent's chain of command would do. 

          She left the meeting with her teeth clenched.  Both her boss and her conscience prodded her to do her duty and bring this story to the public—whether she liked it or not.  She could ignore her conscience, of course.  It didn't threaten her future with the paper if she failed to comply.  Marty Carlson was a different story all together.

         

 

          Reesa Connors demanded a high price for her services, all right, and she got what she asked for because she was damn good.  In this case, it didn't seem like she would be expecting the kind of high fees she had been contemplating.  Reviewing the video footage and ballistics evidence her investigator had brought her, she reminded herself that this was a good thing.  She would still get her retainer and consultation fee—and lots of repeat business anyway—because she was really _that_ good. 

          Archer Goding, her lead investigator was _that_ good, too, worth every penny of compensation she gave him, which was too bad.  As it turned out, this case wasn't nearly worthy of his investigative talents. 

          The evidence was pretty cut and dried.  Not much of a challenge for her either.

          Connors intercommed her secretary and told her she wanted A.D. Travis and Agent Dunne as soon as possible to go over the results.  There was a pause as the secretary ran down some possible appointment times and then hung up to call over to the federal building.  . 

          While she waited, Connors flipped through another manila file folder in her inbox.  By the time her assistant confirmed for 3:00, Connors was already working out a plan of attack for the next new case.

          "Get me Goding on the phone," she said before she hung up.  It wasn't three o'clock yet, and there was no use letting grass grow under her feet when there was work to be done.  "Tell Archer this one will be more of a challenge."

 

 

          PR was on hold until they could get some information out of Travis about what the ATF's expensive lawyer had to say.  Until then, they could not begin to schedule or plan the press conference.  Nevertheless, the conference room had been booked.  Chairs and podium were being moved into place at that very minute.  And the PR division stood poised to pounce as soon as the AD called.  The Director of PR himself left orders to tell him as soon as Travis called, grumbling something about preferring the official word on something this likely to turn explosive might come from someone higher than an Assistant Director.  His assistant did not comment.  He only reminded the representative on the case, one more time, that the Director wanted to be kept in the loop.

          The administrative assistant slid his eyes over to the clock on his computer.  2:42.  Not much longer now. 

 

 

          Chris Larabee hung up his phone and gave a long sigh.  He ground the heels of his hands against his tired eyes then pushed himself out of his desk chair.  Leaning  in his office doorway, he surveyed the team bullpen.  Josiah and Nathan, thankfully, had found some work to do on some other cases that had sprung them from the tension filled bullpen.  Ezra had contrived some excuse to be on his way as well.  Chris hadn't bothered to call him on it.  Part of him wished he had the luxury of fleeing, too. 

          Vin had stayed.  Chris had no idea what the man was actually working on.  He could have been playing solitaire for all Chris knew, but it didn't matter.  Sitting here in the bullpen, was Vin's way of throwing his silent, stalwart support behind J.D. and his team, in general and Chris was grateful for that. 

          J.D. was at his desk. 

          Thus far, the agents and even the supervisors seemed conveniently inclined to look the other way when J.D. came back to the building.  He had to be a little sneakier to get up the stairs into the bullpen.  Then he'd gone from the neutral territory of the kitchenette or the conference room to sitting at any desk that happened to be available.  This morning he went straight for his own chair and had to put his hands in his pockets to keep from logging into his computer.  Chris was pretty sure that unless they raised the suspension soon, J.D. would very shortly be sitting over there working on cases.  Then Chris was going to have to walk upstairs again and let someone define the term suspension for him, a little more clearly this time, so that he could, in turn, do a better job of passing it on to J.D. 

          Chris was not looking forward to that conversation.  Mainly because he should have had it the moment J.D. reappeared in the building, and he knew it.  In fact, had any of his other agents been in the same situation, he would have had no qualms taking the conversation right down to the parking garage before the suspended agent even made it to security.  And he would have been right to do so, for the sake of the team, for the sake of future investigations, and for the sake of the suspended agent.  Chris had berated himself several times already over the sheer stupidity of letting J.D. be in the building, let alone the bullpen.  But he couldn’t shake his gut-level conviction that J.D.'s need to be among his team was greater than the ATF's need to keep him away, or the team's need to toe the line just now.  Chris just hoped it didn't blow up in all their faces because Chris was well aware of the wide array of potential negative effects on not just J.D.'s career, but the reputation of the team and every agent on it, as well as the entire pantheon of their work, past, present, and future if the investigation into the shooting went south. 

          But since the whole chain of command was too busy waiting for word from the lawyer to be down in Team Seven's bullpen taking a head count, and since PR had jumped the gun and leaked word of an upcoming press conference, and the members of the had now begun to gather in earnest at the doors, it wasn't like Chris could send J.D. out of the building anyway.  So it looked like he was here to stay.

          Vin looked like he was here to stay, too.  No contrived errands.  No sudden trainings.  No target practice.  And suspiciously, none of the regular business that usually kept him running in and out all day.  He had even brought and ate a bag lunch, which brought a guffaw from Buck, since Vin kept more food stashed at Chris's ranch or at Buck and J.D.'s townhouse or even in his desk than in his own cupboards.  Vin's response was silent and succinct, requiring only one finger to make his point clear. 

          Buck, on the other hand, had immediately sussed out that J.D. would not be able to leave the building for a while and had made a lunch run, bringing back McDonalds for himself and J.D.  Not that Buck had been accomplishing much in the way of work anyway.  While he had hardly said two words to Chris—other than their quick and vicious argument that morning—he managed to eloquently express his feelings nonetheless.  The intermittent burning glares he sent Chris's way spoke volumes. 

          Chris earned another one just for calling out J.D.'s name.  It was a long one, too, lasting right from the time J.D. put his fries down and slid slowly out of his swivel chair, until Chris closed the office door behind the young agent. 

          He did not sit down, but faced J.D. standing up.

          "You and Travis have a three o'clock appointment with Reesa Connors," he said.  "She has reviewed all the evidence we were able to give her and wants to go over her findings with you and Travis."

          J.D. swallowed but he kept his face calm.

          "It sounds like she may have some good news," Chris said, trying not to sound too hopeful.  In cases like this, he tended to wait until he heard it for himself before he believed in "good news" from a lawyer.  Even Reesa Connors.

          J.D. nodded, evidently also trying not to look too hopeful.

          "You want to take anyone with you besides Travis?" Chris asked. 

          J.D. frowned for a moment.  "Is that allowed?"

          Chris shrugged.  "Who's going to stop you?" He asked.  After all the worst that could happen was Travis refusing to take the other person along. 

          J.D. seemed to consider that for a moment.  "Would you mind?" he asked after a moment.

          It took a second for Chris to realize what J.D. had asked, and as a result got himself under control too late to stop the startled flinch or the confused "Me?" that escaped his lips.

          J.D. drew back a step.

          "I didn't mean it like that," Chris said hurriedly.  "If you want me to go with you, I'll be glad to.  I just…"

          _Just what?_   He asked himself.  What possible reason could he have to refuse J.D.'s request?  Except that he had assumed that J.D. would take Buck.  Or Vin.  Or Josiah.  Or just about anyone else. 

          Except that Buck, who had been glaring hard enough to melt the paint on his office door, was really going to love that. 

          Ah, shit!  This was not going to help matters any.

          J.D. was looking at him now, and Chris could clearly see him working out a way to gracefully withdraw the request before embarrassing either one of them any further. 

          Chris chided himself for that.  If J.D. ever needed him, it was now.  Of course he would go.  And he needed to let J.D. know that he meant that part about being glad to do it, too. 

          He pulled his jacket off the peg on the back of his door and shrugged into it.

          "Let's go," he said, giving J.D. a confident nod and trying to ignore the hopeful look that flashed across the kid's face.  As if Chris Larabee deciding to go along was really going to change or stop anything.  He tried not to grit his teeth.

          "We'll be back," Chris announced to both men in the bullpen.

          Vin stopped typing and looked up.  "Good luck," he said to J.D.  And he meant it. 

          "Give 'em hell, kid," Buck said.  The words were light, but the tone was not and the seriousness in his face told J.D. a thousand times over that Buck had his back. 

          Chris tried not to sigh, as Buck gave him another pointed glare, this one full of warnings Chris barely even bothered to decipher.  Then Buck turned back to his computer screen.

          Chris let it roll off his back.  He didn't have time to worry about Buck and whatever he thought Chris was trying to do to J.D.  There was no time.  As he herded J.D. out the door ahead of him and toward the elevator, he tried to figure out exactly how he was going to manage to smuggle J.D. out of the building without attracting the attention of either the brass or the growing swarm of reporters. 

          Naturally, the tactics for accomplishing each of these missions formed a nice little Catch 22.  This did not surprise Chris.  He was used to having the deck stacked against him. 

          Clearly, the best way to avoid the brass was by going out the parking garage.  The parking garage, however, was infested with milling members of the press because they had been restricted from the building proper, but the garage was technically public property, so there wasn't much anyone could do about it.  The best way to avoid the press was by going out the front doors of the building,  There weren't many reporters out front because really, no one but the general public used the front doors, and the general public was not of much interest to the headlines the press was after.  In addition, the few reporters out front were sticking agreeably to a cordon that confined them across the street and, as a result, offered a nice head start to building escapees.  However, going out the front doors exponentially increased the probability of running into someone who would alert the brass that J.D. was in the building. 

          Chris chewed on that for a bit.  And determined they were pretty well screwed.  However, it was likely that Chris would be more screwed that J.D. when the brass found out J.D. was serving out his suspension sitting in the Team Seven bullpen.  The only question was whether Chris would be in more trouble if J.D. were spotted directly, or if they got blown in by the six o' clock news.  Chris's respect for Orin Travis decided it for him.  They headed for the front doors.

          According to the new plan, J.D. would wait in the lobby while Chris went around to the garage to get his own car, and bring it around front to get J.D., since he was pretty sure the press would know J.D.'s car by now. 

          Of course, Chris knew that, by this time, there was little chance that any well-informed reporter could fail to recognize _any_ member of Team Seven or their cars.  That made Chris's goal even simpler.  He just had to get out of the garage before any reporters spotted him leaving.  Then he just had to beat them to the front doors, and pull the truck up right against the curb, since running it up on the sidewalk was likely to attract too much attention from across the street.  All J.D. had to do was run like hell for the truck, dive in, and shut the door before anyone got him on film.

          Chris also knew that this was probably the crappiest plan in the history of crappy plans—and most likely doomed.  He didn't say so, though, because he had nothing better. 

          He was prepared to have to stand on the carpet upstairs when he went down in flames. 

          He was not prepared, however, to meet a reporter coming right inside the building proper.  Nor was he prepared for who the reporter was.

          He halted abruptly, instinctively shielding J.D. behind him as Mary Travis looked up.

          "Chris," she greeted him.  She kept her voice bright, but the look in her eye said something else all together.  That and the way she took a reluctant step backward and away from him.

          A strange expression flashed across her face and she turned suddenly and took her id card back from the startled guard.  "You know what?" she stammered suddenly.  "I've changed my mind."

          The guard looked confused.

          Chris hoped, really hoped that maybe she was going to leave and pretend that she never saw them.

          Chris had stopped so suddenly that J.D. nearly walked right into him, bumping against an arm that Chris thrust suddenly back toward him.  J.D. was reminded painfully of the way his mother used to thrust an arm in front of him whenever their car was forced to make a particularly quick stop.  As if her arm had the strength to keep her child from going through the windshield.

          Only in this case, it was Chris's arm and the danger was Mary Travis. 

          That cut J.D. to the quick.  Let the rest of the world think what they would, and he could understand and deal with it.  But Mary Travis was a friend.  And he needed his friends to know that he was not some child-killing monster.  Or he needed to know that they already knew that. 

          He drew his shoulders back and stepped around Chris, standing frozen in his tracks.

          "Hello Mrs. Travis," he said.

          Chris cursed J.D. and Mary both.

          Mary had been set to go back to the office and tell Marty Carlson either that she had no luck or to go to hell.  Or perhaps both.  But the painful tone of J.D.'s voice made her turn toward him.  And she wished instantly that she hadn't.

          He looked so very young, younger even than she had ever thought of him.  And so tired.  Enormous dark circles shadowed his eyes.  And his entire face had a drawn and anxious appearance that looked so foreign on him, who always reminded her of a bright Fourth of July sparkler among a sea of somber cynics. 

          Chris Larabee, who was looking haggard himself, glowered at her thunderously.  His face was completely impassive and hard as stone except for the livid green eyes.  All six feet of him stood tensed and ready, anger radiating off of him.

          This was not her fault, she wanted to tell him.  But looking at his stone-carved face, it was as if she could feel that glare reach right out at her, like it was a thing palpable and capable of doing her harm.  She sensed the coiled deadliness in him.  And she knew without a doubt that he would stop at nothing to protect the agent who stood between them, even if she herself were the adversary.  A chill shivered its way down her spine.  For the first time ever, Mary Travis saw the side of Chris Larabee that his men joked about and other people talked about in furtively lowered voices.  For the first time ever, she was afraid of him.

          Chris swore under his breath.  Mary Travis was on her way into the building. This was not an unusual occurrence, but by now the major press outfits had been alerted that a press conference was going to be held.  They could hardly enter the building through security checks before the scheduled conference, but they could certainly mill about the parking garage all they wanted.  For the most part, they tended to stay outside, lingering far enough from the entrances and exits, that they weren't likely to be run over by agents rushing off to their duties but could still broadcast updates with the building's façade as a nice backdrop.  He could hardly expect the hopeful cadre lingering across the street to stay put once their colleague Mary Travis had been seen entering the building ahead of them. 

          He should have realized that already.

          A man shouldered through the double doors that led to the street.  He had a camera on his shoulder.

          The guard looked up and away from Mary.

          "Mary!" the young reporter called to her. 

          She turned in evident surprise.  Her lips fell open.  "I thought you were filming in the parking garage." 

          He smiled brightly.  "Why compete with everyone else when you've already got the inside track."

          Chris followed Mary's gaze as she turned her head ever so slowly toward the glass lobby doors. 

          Her partner in crime had broken the cordon.  The small cadre of reporters waiting across the street surged forward like sharks scenting blood on the water.  Through the one-way glass, he could see them approaching, cameras and sound equipment and microphones and voice recorders in tow, dribbling and flowing between parked cars and trucks, coming toward them like fingers of water reaching up a sandy beachhead.  They were joined by another stream flowing from the direction of the parking garage.

          The guards moved forward, calling immediately for backup.

          Chris reacted instantly, putting himself into the scant two feet between J.D. and Mary and forced J.D. bodily back through the security barriers. 

          He paused one moment, his voice ice cold as he told her "Whatever you have to say, you can say it at the press conference."

          The words "I have an appointment" floated uselessly into her brain.  In fact it was the whole reason she had come in through the front doors.  Yet she stood there, feet rooted to the ground, as Chris herded J.D. back into the elevators.  She had one last look at Dunne's young face, his confusion and an apology written all over it.  The sadness in his eyes seemed burned into her memory and she stood frozen, unable to shake that cold sinking feeling in her stomach.

          "Mary, good to see you!" a breathless voice said in her ear.  John Patterson was dragging camera equipment through the door.  He looked around, catching his breath.  "We're the first," he said to a suited reporter nearby.  "Except for you," he amended, giving Mary a smile. 

          "But then we don't have your kind of inside information," the reporter said, his voice carefully flat and unreadable.

          A moment later, the little lobby began to fill. 

          The security guards called for reinforcements and refused to unlock the second set of lobby doors, or to let anyone through to the elevators. 

          Belatedly, Mary realized that if she had simply gone ahead, if she had not let Chris Larabee rattle her or J.D. Dunne sway her, if she just gone on through to her scheduled meeting, then Chris and J.D. would have gone on to whatever destination they had been headed for and the lobby behind her would still have been empty. 

          How was she going to explain this?  Not to Marty, of course.  He would love the whole idea of the press prematurely storming the federal building's lobby.  No, that wasn't her worry.  How was she going to explain this to her contacts in the ATF, especially now when she was already late for her exclusive appointment with one man who very generously, if reluctantly, had agreed to see her?

 

 

          Buck was not prepared to see Chris storm back into the bullpen, driving J.D. in front of him, like he was propelling him with some unseen force.

          Vin's head snapped up. 

          "Sit," Chris barked at J.D.

          And J.D. did, looking miserable as he plopped himself into an empty rolling chair by the doorway.

          Buck looked J.D. over good, trying to find some clue why they had come back so quickly.  He glanced through the open door into Chris' office.  Chris stood behind his desk, stabbing the buttons with one finger as he dialed the phone.  Buck could well imagine the hiss of a burning fuse coming out of that office.  If he closed his eyes, he could almost see the sparks.

          He decided he'd be better off asking J.D. the questions.  He rolled his chair next to J.D.'s, leaned in and dropped his voice.  "What happened?"

          "Mary Travis was in the lobby," J.D. said miserably. 

          Buck knew that was significant but he didn't have time to figure out exactly how and why before Chris's voice, vibrating with fury, growled into his phone, "The press is in the lobby."

          Buck left off his interrogation of J.D. and swiveled his chair to better see and hear Chris's conversation.  Josiah and Nathan came out of the kitchenette and stood watching, neither man even attempting to hide it as they angled themselves to get a better view.  Only J.D. did not react.  He turned his face resolutely toward a blank wall and sat slump-shouldered and still in his chair.

          For days now Buck had felt like a fist had been slowly squeezing around his heart.  He wanted so badly to wipe that dejection off J.D.'s face, to remove the weight bearing down on the kid's shoulders, to bring that spark back into his friend's eyes. 

          He turned his chair away from Chris, hooked one foot around the bottom of J.D.'s desk chair and pulled.  Both desk chairs rolled together. 

          "Hey," Buck said, his voice low and pitched right to J.D.

          Buck waited until J.D.'s eyes rolled toward him. 

          "It'll be all right," he said, injecting every last bit of confidence he could muster into his next words.

          In one look, those hazel eyes told Buck everything he wanted to know and everything he didn't.  He watched gratitude well up and then fade all too quickly.  The sadness sucked it down again like quicksand. 

          J.D. looked away.  "You don’t know that, Buck," he said, his voice taking on a hard note that Buck wasn't used to hearing.  Not from J.D. anyway.

          "Hey," he said again, more forcefully, drowning out Chris's voice somewhere behind him. 

          Buck clunked their two chairs together again, hard enough to make J.D. look up.

          "I'm right here with you, no matter what," Buck said and let J.D. see every bit of seriousness in his eyes.  He gave J.D.'s arm a hard shake for emphasis, and searched the hazel eyes until he was sure J.D. heard and understood he meant it.  "No matter what," he repeated.

          He got an almost smile in one corner of J.D.'s mouth.

          Message received.

          "All right then," he smiled. 

          He let go of J.D.'s arm and turned his attention back to finding out what Chris was going to do about this mess.  Overall, in Buck's opinion, most of what Chris had done since the beginning of this disaster was a whole lot of unimpressive knuckling under and playing ball with the bureaucratic bastards above them, when what he should have been doing was kicking ass and taking names until they took their claws out of J.D.'s hide and crawled back into their plush offices to lick their wounds.  Chris, however, had his priorities in some other order.

          Buck narrowed his eyes.  Sometimes he wanted to kick Larabee's ass good.  In the last few days, he wondered at his own self restraint.  Sometimes he could imagine exactly how he could take Chris down in his own office.  Pin him down on the ugly institutional carpeting and force him to focus.  To look at what was happening to J.D. right in front of their eyes.

          He gritted his teeth. 

          "J.D."  Chris hollered from the office.  J.D. leaped out of his chair like he been hit with an electric shock, standing to face Chris as he came out of his office, scowling hard.

          "Call Lawford," Chris ground out.  "Have him meet us in Travis's office."

          J.D. nodded to show he had heard.  But Chris read his unspoken questions as if he had said them aloud.  It was clear the Team Leader made an effort to calm his thunderous scowl.  "Connors will meet us in Travis's office.  It'd be a good idea to have your lawyer there, too."

          Vin watched impassively as Buck did his best to glare a hole through Chris's skull, as Chris continued to carry off a pretty fair version of the "I can't hear you" game. 

          So far the score was tied in the stubbornness department.  Going into double overtime now.  Something would have to break soon.  Vin feared it would be someone's head. 

          Ezra had already voiced his opinion that when Chris and Buck finally did explode, it was hardly likely that they'd just damage each other.  No, it was more likely the flak would take out the nearby spectators.  "Most likely, me," Ezra had added, his tone deeply aggrieved.  Vin found he couldn't really argue with the man's logic on that point.  After all, Ezra had the desk next to Buck's.  He was definitely in line for collateral damage.  

          Vin's eyes fell on J.D., who had dug his phone out of his pocket, face white with nervousness, he stammered his way through what Vin thought was a message on the FLEOA lawyer's voice mail, but then J.D. stopped to listen. 

          "Yes," he replied after a moment.

          He held the phone up to Chris who stood impatiently in the bullpen doorway. Under other circumstances, Vin might have gotten a chuckle from the surprised look on Chris's face and the way he looked at the phone like it was going to bite him. 

          "Larabee," Chris spoke into the phone. 

          It was a short conversation, Chris's end of it consisting mostly of a series of noncommittal grunts. 

          "I'll do my best," Chris said cryptically and handed the phone back to J.D.

          With a tilt of his head, Larabee sent J.D. out into the hall, but before Chris could follow, Buck rolled his chair suddenly backward into Chris's path.

          "You'll do your best to do what?" Buck asked.

          "Stall," Chris answered but there was no small threat implied in his look.  To Vin's way of thinking, Chris couldn't have said it more clearly if he had said the words aloud.  If Buck didn't get out of the way, Chris was going to walk right through him. 

          "Chris?" J.D. called, and his voice sounded so unsure.  Damn, Vin missed that cocky voice.  J.D. was going to be second guessing himself for a long time to come, he knew.

          Buck responded to that plaintive note, too, grudgingly removing himself from Chris's path. 

          Vin had to give Chris credit for self-control.  Whatever ill will he harbored toward Buck at that second, out in the hallway, there was nothing but warm assurance in his voice as he said to J.D., "Let's go."  They stepped into the elevator together.

          "Probably should have stalled on goin' upstairs," Vin muttered quietly after a suitable delay.

          Buck looked at him.

          "Ain't gonna look good when the two of them arrive together on short notice."

          No one replied to that, unless you counted a controlled exhale from somewhere in the vicinity of Josiah and Nathan's desks.

          The way it was goin', Vin reckoned, someone with a lot of initials after his name and a big desk upstairs was gonna be taking chunks out of Larabee's hide well before Buck got a chance to try—and probably well after, too. 

          Stupid, Vin knew.  Larabee should have sent J.D. home a long time ago.  Vin didn't point it out, though, since he was pretty sure that Chris was well aware of the stupidity of letting J.D. stay when there was no way in the world he could justify it. 

          Vin didn't point out Buck's stupidity in ignoring the realities and ramifications of J.D. situation either.  Buck could get just as hellbent and stubborn as Chris, and it wasn't always real smart to try to point out the obvious when Buck was dead set against seeing it.  It would fall on the man's head eventually.  Vin figured that when the hammer dropped, whether it hit him like a little bitty rock or like a ton of bricks was largely up to Buck.  Under the circumstances, Vin wasn't optimistic.

 

 

          In Travis's outer office, J.D. sat with his hands between knees that jiggled up and down, twisting and twisting his hands over and through each other as if he were trying to warm them.  Watching from the corner of his eye, Chris resisted the urge to fling himself out of the chair and pace.  Travis's assistant watched them both over top of her computer screen.

          "Would you like some coffee?" she finally asked kindly.

          Chris nearly barked out a laugh at that.  Looking at himself and J.D., neither one of them needed more caffeine.

          "No thank you," he replied and tried not to sound ungrateful.

          He got out of the chair, but he refused to pace.  Pacing wouldn't help J.D., who was trying like hell to maintain some semblance of calm.  He wandered to a convenient spot for leaning on the wall and tried not to look like he was studying J.D. or like he wished the kid had picked Buck to go along instead.  Buck would know what to say or what to do to set the kid's mind at ease.  Chris had no idea what to say.  What can set your mind at ease when you know you made a decision in the heat of battle that everyone else gets to second guess in the better light of calm retrospect and new evidence?  What do you say to someone whose career hangs in the balance?  What do you say to someone who shot three teenaged boys and now knows that one of them was unarmed?  What do you say when you know that no matter what judgments are made by juries, internal affairs officers, the public, and the press, the guy you look at in the mirror every day, the harshest judge of all, will be sitting on your back for the rest of your career and the rest of your life?  Where do you begin to find words for _that_?

          Nothing.  That was what there was to say.  Nothing. 

          But Chris was pretty sure saying nothing at all was not the right answer here.

          _You should've brought Buck,_ Chris thought at the top of J.D.'s head. 

          Travis came in the door behind them, looking harried.  His eyes ricocheted off J.D. and landed with a hard glower on Chris.  It wasn't unexpected.  Chris knew he was likely headed for a reprimand, and maybe even a shiny new memo for his personnel file, if someone beyond Travis was complaining.  Still, he was grateful for the way the A.D.'s hard expression softened as his gaze swept over J.D., hunched over his wringing hands and staring unseeing at the carpet.

          J.D. looked up as if he sensed the man's gaze.

          "Ms. Connors will be here in about ten minutes," Travis said, not unkindly.  "Why don't we go into my office?"  He gestured toward his door and asked his assistant to bring some coffee, as he shepherded J.D. inside.

          Chris pushed himself off the wall and followed them.  J.D. sank into one of the chairs that sat before Travis's desk. 

          Chris did not sit.  He remained planted in the doorway, which turned out to be convenient as Travis waited only long enough for J.D.'s attention to be focused elsewhere before he turned and took two steps back into Chris's face. 

          "For both of our sakes," he growled for Chris's ears alone.  "You better have a good explanation handy for how J.D. got here so fast."

          Chris returned the look.  "He was in the neighborhood," Chris stated coolly. 

          The very outer corner of Travis's mouth ticked infinitesimally upward like a crack in the man's stony face.  "Save it for someone who really wants to know," Travis ground out.

          He moved off toward his desk as if the conversation had never happened. 

          Likewise, Chris did not move out of the doorway.

          If J.D. noticed the tense conversation behind him, he did not give any sign.

          "Internal Affairs has asked to be present," Travis announced.  His voice was a lot cooler than the warning glower he shot at Chris over J.D.'s head, as J.D. glanced up suddenly.

          "J.D.'s lawyer is on the way," Chris returned.

          Travis's frown deepened a notch.  Chris resisted the urge to shrug.  J.D. had a right to be represented. 

          Travis knew that, so Chris did not point it out.  He was pretty sure Travis was still plenty pissed about that clusterfuck of a meeting they had had that afternoon.  The upper echelons were breathing down Travis's neck, after all.  Chris might have been cognizant of Travis's position, but he was hard pressed to muster up any sympathy.  Chris had used up his quota in that department. 

          As far as Chris was concerned, Travis could keep right one being pissed off because Chris was, too.  Right now, many floors below them, that little prick from P.R. was setting up for his conference.  He would have prepared several statements in advance, so all he needed to know was what Ms. Connors thought so he could pick the right speech.  In the meantime, press from all over the city and probably some national venues, too, were making their way into the building, heading for coffee rooms and setting up camera angles.  An unspecified number of them would attempt to gain access to areas that were restricted. 

          Deborah arrived with a pot of coffee on a tray she dug up from some conference room somewhere.  She handed Chris a Styrofoam cup, black and steaming.  He seldom drank coffee up here unless being held prisoner for some particularly long meeting.  It was funny that she would remember from those rare occasions how he liked to drink it.  But then, she was extremely good at her job.  A coffee run could hardly be considered a challenge for the woman.

          She placed the tray on Travis's large wooden desk and went out as silently as she came in, receiving J.D.'s grateful nod with a small acknowledging smile, and for that alone earned the best smile Chris could manage to dredge up.

          J.D. was trying not to look nervous.  He leaned back in the chair, cradling his cup of coffee in both hands, and pressing his feet against the carpet to keep them still.  He doubted that he was really fooling anyone.  Travis had already skewered him more than once with that all-knowing glance of his.  He could feel Chris's presence behind him, standing in the doorway like some gatekeeper, armed to the teeth and fully capable of turning away rampaging barbarians.  Just thinking about that calm and silent support at his back did more to calm his nerves than just about anything he could think of.  He supposed that was why he had asked Chris to come.  That and Chris was well-versed in negotiating tricky territory with upper level brass. 

          His mouth went dry.

          Used to be the most he had to worry about in coming upstairs was saying something stupid in front of his superiors. 

          He stared at his coffee and wondered if it was cool enough to drink yet and tried not to wish he could reverse time and go back to that store and this time take an extra second to note their ages and who had guns.  If only…

          The agent from Internal Affairs arrived first.  J.D. didn't turn around to look as the man traded terse words with Chris.

          "Agent Larabee?  I'm--,"

          "I know who you are."

          There was a faint sliding sound and J.D. turned his head to watch Chris grudgingly give over just enough room to allow the IA representative to squeeze by him.  Just enough.  And not a millimeter more.  Half a head shorter than Chris, the IA agent looked away from Chris's hard gaze as he slipped through.

          Then Travis rolled his eyes. 

          J.D. was mildly horrified to feel a smile twitch onto his face.  He burnt his tongue taking a hurried sip of his coffee to hide his smile.

          Chris watched the guy from IA take a seat in the corner, away from J.D. and Travis, where he could watch the whole room at once.  He made a lot of noise about straightening his suit and studiously looked everywhere about Travis's office except toward the door where Chris was still planted. 

          _Little prick,_ Chris thought. 

          Travis's exasperated eye roll did not escape Chris either.  He couldn't honestly say that playing "Who blinks first?" with IA was ever what one might call a "good" idea.  Nor could he say that petty vindictiveness was one of his better points.  Needling IA just felt too good to pass up.  He couldn't help himself. 

          Then he decided that he was probably right when he had told Deborah not to bring him coffee. 

          Frank Lawford arrived before Reesa Connors.  The IA agent seemed to sit up a little straighter when Lawford introduced himself as J.D.'s attorney.  Lawford sat down in the chair right next to J.D. and made himself comfortable.  The IA agent glanced to Travis to try to gauge the A.D.'s reaction to the lawyer's arrival.  He met Chris's eye by accident then looked away again.  Chris mentally posted another point in the good guys column.

          Reesa Connors sure took her damn time.  At several hundred dollars an hour, Chris supposed she thought she was entitled to.  In the meantime, the coffee had run out and been refreshed; J.D. had gotten nervous all over again; the IA guy was looking impatient and uncomfortable; Travis was trying to glare a silent warning to Chris, which Chris was studiously ignoring; and Lawford, looking cool, casual, and composed, was trying to engage J.D. in some small talk unrelated to the shooting or lawyers or law enforcement. 

          When she finally did arrive, Reesa Connors swept into Travis's outer office like she owned the place. 

          Connors stopped to look at Chris, who was still blocking Travis's door, then turned to Travis's assistant to introduce herself.

          "Please go right in," Deborah said politely.

          She pulled up short in front of Chris.  "Agent Larabee," she said with a smile that was not altogether pleasant.

          He gave back a slightly malicious smile of his own as he removed himself from the doorway to let her pass.

 

 

          Mary made notes to herself on a small notepad as she waited for the press conference to begin.  The room had filled up rapidly, and it seemed like everyone wanted a piece of this story.  There had been no time to render apologies to the agent she had stood up.  Most likely, though, he would understand, if not appreciate, her position.

          Word had spread quickly when the ATF's high-priced attorney arrived.  She was upstairs right now, Mary knew.  In several places along the walls, television reporters called in and taped their updates for earlier air times.  Correspondents for websites typed away on laptops and handheld devices.  All of them sending off their little reports about there being nothing to report—yet.  It was important to keep the feeding frenzy stoked and the audience on pins and needles.  That was one nice thing about the newspaper business.  It might be an old-fashioned and dying medium, but she didn't have to report in when there was nothing to report—even when the case had become so big that even a report of "no news" was now considered to be actual news.

          Mary thought about how she had nearly taken her id and her credentials and gone back to her office to tell Marty Carlson  to go ahead and find someone else to get an inside scoop or to do his dirty work himself.  And she was embarrassed.  She had not carved out a career in journalism by being timid.  She was not one to be easily intimidated.  And yet Chris Larabee had intimidated her.   The more she thought about it, the angrier she got at his arrogance and presumption.  She was a reporter.  She was obligated to tell the news, whether Chris Larabee liked it or not.

          Marty Carlson might deserve to be told to shove it.  And Mary might yet go and tell him just that, but it sure as hell wouldn't be because Chris Larabee had intimidated her.  It would be because it was the right thing to do. 

          Besides, it was too early to do it before she knew what the ATF officially had to say. 

          That train of thought made her feel much better.  She tried not to think about J.D. Dunne at all and continued making notes and lists on her notepad—still waiting. 

 

 

 

 

          J.D. was still upstairs in Travis's office when the newssites began twittering their nonsense about standing by for the press conference where the ATF would finally reveal some of the details behind the shooting, including their official opinion of whether the agent in question appeared to be negligent.  Talking heads were speculating about the agent's guilt or innocence, and about the long term effects of race relations and neighborhood relations between civilians and federal law enforcement agencies and how this would affect the relationship between the public and law enforcement at the local police level.  It was the usual assortment of liberals, conservatives, agitators, and people looking for their next fifteen minutes of fame. 

          Their bullpen hummed quietly with the low conversation of his teammates.  They had all put aside errands and contrived reasons to avoid duties that would call them away from the bullpen.  Copies of the reports from the Stanson case were sitting idly on a desk down on the fifth floor.  At least one target practice session had been canceled.  Rain was being stood up for lunch—again.  And the county coroner was still waiting for Agent Larabee to return his phone call. 

          Instead, Team Seven was here, in the bullpen, doing their best to work on their cases without leaving the room or tying up their phone lines.  They worked, waiting impatiently for J.D. and Chris to return, knowing that Team Seven would hear the news only seconds before the press conference began and all the official details were fed to the press for public consumption, with and without editing.  They would have scant seconds to celebrate victory or brace for the worst.  So distracting themselves with the details of cases, they watched the door and waited for the tell-tale sound of the elevator.

          In the meantime, since trying to sneak J.D. out of the building at a time when nearly the entire press cadre of Denver and the surrounding area plus a few national outfits were downstairs in their very building was clearly out of the question, Buck worked the phones trying to get a television set and a cable connection so they could watch the press conference live in their conference room.  Of course there was always live streaming video.  But a TV would be easier for all of them to watch at once, assuming he could get one in the next several minutes.

          The sound of the stairwell door hitting the opposite wall made them all jump.  Five pairs of eyes turned to the bullpen door, and waited in the absolute silence, as if the room itself held its breath.

          The room exhaled the moment they saw J.D.'s face.  White as a sheet, he looked so tired, yet his entire face from the light in his eyes to the wide grin proclaimed his profound relief. 

          Buck gave a whoop that hurt J.D.'s ear and lifted him right off the floor.  J.D. gave a loud whuff as the air shot out of his lungs.

          "Jesus Christ, let him talk!" Vin growled.

          "Let him tell what they said," Nathan added.

          A chorus of voices seconded the motion and Buck threw J.D. happily down into Ezra's desk chair.

          He grinned wide.  "So talk," he demanded, not waiting for J.D. to catch his breath.

          J.D. thought for a second, searching for the right words.  "Ms. Connors said," he began carefully, unable to bring himself to use her first name, "that based on the video evidence and the witness reports, my actions appeared reasonable under the circumstances."

          His teammates grinned at each other. 

          "And?"  Josiah prompted impatiently.

          J.D. shrugged.  "And IA said they agreed."

          They grinned at each other even wider.

          "I could have told them that," Buck snorted, sticking his thumbs into the belt loops of his pants and grinning as smugly as if he had cleared J.D.'s name himself. 

          "I guess that's it, then," J.D. said, looking around with a shrug.  It seemed strange.  The guillotine poised over his head simply disappearing like that without even so much as a whimper. 

          He thought about the Internal Affairs agent squinting hard eyes at the copy of the report and then simply saying.  "We concur with your assessment."

          J.D. had let out an enormous sigh of relief right there.  Connors congratulated herself.  Then she shook hands with Travis and the IA agent before finally turning to shake J.D.'s hand.  Chris watched her sweep out the door in the same grand style she swept in.  His eyes never softened one iota.  Not even when he nodded at Travis and the guy from IA and motioned J.D. out of the office.

          Lawford had pressed his card into J.D.'s hand.  "Call me," he said brusquely, before turning to thank AD Travis.  For an instant, J.D. was sure he saw Lawford lock eyes with Chris.  But the moment passed so quickly, and J.D. felt so suddenly lightheaded as Connors's words and IA's words sunk in, that he didn't bother to give it any more thought.

          Until now anyway, when Chris still stood in the doorway, his mouth still pulled into a thin, straight line and his eyes still steely hard.  Some silent thought passed from Chris to Buck. 

          "The press conference should begin shortly," Chris said, his voice flat and low.

          "I'm way ahead of your there, Pard," Buck answered.  "Lisa from IT is trying to rummage up a TV for our conference room."

          Buck never stopped grinning but something shifted around his eyes as he regarded Chris.  He looked away from the team leader. 

          "Who wants popcorn?" he asked too loudly and moved off into the conference room. 

          _Damn Chris anyway,_ Buck thought rummaging in the cupboard above the coffee maker.  There was one moment of victory in this for the kid.  Just one.  And the biggest smile Buck had seen on him in days.  And Chris couldn't manage to exude just one little bit of human warmth for the kid.  He couldn't let the kid have the moment.  He had to stand there looking like the prophet of doom.  _Like it would crack his face to smile._   He found the popcorn and slammed the cupboard door.

          Where the hell was the TV?

          Chris turned his gaze from the conference room where Buck was muttering to himself and slamming cupboard doors to meet Josiah's eyes, eyes that were just as grim as his own.  Josiah knew.  And if the others didn't know it yet, they would once they got over their relief and took a second to think.  Including Buck, who ought to know damn well, no matter how far up his own ass he chose to stick his head.  The only one who didn't know it yet was J.D.  And Chris wasn't optimistic that it would remain that way for long. 

          Just because IA and Reesa Connors might render one opinion didn't mean it would come out that way during the conference, no matter what statements PR prepared.  Live reporters and clever editors with their own agendas and opinions were not so simple to control.  The press conference was about to begin.  Neither Chris nor J.D. had seen the prepared statement.  They had not been afforded that courtesy, and if Travis had seen it, he was being unusually tight-lipped about it.

          None of them, including J.D., were naïve enough to believe that J.D.'s name had not been leaked out among the press somewhere.  It wouldn't take a rocket scientist to smoke out the information.  It would simply take a practiced reporter's use of well-cultivated connections.  The only reason it hadn't been printed or published yet was the sheer grace of some kind of gentlemen's agreement somewhere farther up the food chain.  That and respect for agents who put their lives on the line every day.  And the only reason that factor came into play, Chris was sure, was J.D. himself. 

          Any thorough investigation of J.D. Dunne's career records would come up clean.  A clean record for a first rate law enforcement professional.  The story might have been very different if J.D. had had Chris's history of intimidation and thumbing his nose at proper procedure, or the complaints of excessive force and borderline unethical interrogation tactics in his and Buck's old DPD files, or Josiah's reputation for getting  "Old Testament" with suspects, or Nathan's hardline political affiliations, or Vin's closed criminal investigation in the wrongful shooting death of Jess Kincaid, or the persistent rumors and lingering suspicions of corruption from Ezra's FBI days.  Had the press found any of that in J.D.'s background, all bets would have been off, and his name would have been splashed across the headlines and the airwaves and the wireless feeds until he became fodder for late night television comedy monologues all across the country.  Instead, they found J.D. Dunne:  earnest, dedicated, and squeaky clean.  And for that they gave him the grace of their silence, at least for a time.

          Lisa arrived, a brown haired girl who couldn't have been more than twenty-two, wheeling a TV on a cart.

          Chris moved away from the door without a word.

          "There you are!" Buck said as if he had been waiting for Lisa and not the TV.  She smiled.  He waved her into the conference room.

          "Has it started yet?" Buck's voice floated back, asking no one in particular, simply assuming someone was watching the news sites on line.

          A reasonable assumption under the circumstances, Chris thought. 

          Reesa Connor's words on J.D.'s conduct.  _Reasonable under the circumstances,_ Chris mused.  Stock phrasing.  Damn right it was reasonable under the circumstances. 

          "Not yet," he heard Nathan reply.

          J.D. was a good agent and a smart one, who walked into a convenience store to buy a Coke and minutes later found himself in the middle of a robbery by three boys. 

          It should have been cut and dried.  J.D. drew his gun and identified himself.  The perpetrators started shooting and yelling.  J.D. returned fire.  The store manager curled up on the floor behind the counter and hid. 

          When the dust cleared, the store manager was unharmed.  His money was right in the cash register where it belonged, and the only people who got hurt were the ones who tried to commit a crime.  Case closed.

          Trouble was, not one of the perpetrators had reached 18.  Trouble was, the third boy, hit just under the left shoulder blade as he ran for the door ahead of his buddies, turned out to be unarmed. 

          Trouble was, there were grieving mothers and a community reeling in shock.  Trouble was no one could say for certain that Tyson Morton had ever stepped out of line a day in his life before that day. 

          Trouble was, no one wanted to say this was a "good shooting" when it was a damn senseless waste and a tragedy no matter how you sliced it.  Two young boys were critically injured and a third one was dead.  But the tragedy began a long time before J.D. Dunne decided to go down the block from his routine random licensing check and buy a Coke. 

          Trouble was, that wasn't nearly as good a story or as easy to fix as it was to blame the agent who fired on three boys. 

          "It's showtime!" Buck crowed from the conference room, and six members of Team Seven moved toward the conference room door. 

          J.D.'s steps slowed.  He wasn't at all sure he wanted to hear what the ATF had to say or what the press would ask.  He wasn't sure he wanted to hear more people rehash facts he could not escape. 

          Behind J.D., Chris watched his youngest agent's steps grow hesitant.  He couldn't blame him.  The meeting with Travis went well but the press conference could still go badly.  And J.D. was smart enough to figure that out, just as soon as people on TV started talking.

          And this time, Chris was absolutely certain, that in an effort to appease the press and thank them, names would be given out and details would finally be released. 

          He placed his hand squarely in the center of J.D.'s back and leaned forward so only J.D. could hear.  "You don't have to watch," he said. 

          J.D. swallowed and gave a sigh.  "I think I do," he replied.  Then he squared his shoulders and marched into the conference room behind his teammates.

          Chris shook his head and cursed Buck.  He had to know the press conference could still go badly.  Did he think that just because J.D. would be sitting with the six of them that would automatically make everything all right?  Or was this just his cockamamie idea of showing support?

          Chris grimaced again and finally went through the conference room door.  On the television screen, the whispered voice of the reporter overlaid the scene as the cameraman zoomed in on the row of tables at the front of the room and the speaker's podium.

          Chris recognized the head of Internal Affairs, Director Hofstader, and the head of Public Relations as they filed in, followed by AD Travis, who sat to the far left, the place they had wanted to corral Chris into, he noted with no small irony.

          The room quieted as the director of PR stepped up to the podium.  "We would like to read a prepared statement," he announced, "and then we will field questions."

          Chris flinched and wished they would just stick with the prepared statement.

          On screen, the man began reeling out the facts of the case.  "On Sunday, April twelfth, at approximately 2:20 PM, Agent John Dunne of Denver-based ATF Team Seven entered the Quik n EZ convenience market at 1542 Morrell Avenue…"

          Chris watched J.D.'s hands tighten on the arms of his chair to hear his name read right out in front of furiously typing and scribbling reporters. 

          He resisted the urge to shake his head.  Buck liked to call him a pessimist, and, now and then, "the prophet of doom".  Buck could say what he liked.  There was good reason to be pessimistic.

          Chris watched the conference proceed on television with only part of his attention.  The rest was taken up watching J.D. wind himself up tighter and tighter to hear the facts laid bare in public, grating on that one raw and bleeding nerve.

          Chris understood.  He did.  He knew what it was to have the worst nightmare of his life cut and edited and editorialized and pandered for public consumption and entertainment.  He knew what it was to have his own pain trotted out and dehumanized in the press, cut into sound bytes, precisely dissecting his life and heart into facts that would fit into a three inch column.  He knew about having his actions scrutinized and questioned.  And how much it hurt to to see them thrown back at him in large headline print by complete and utter strangers, spinning eye-catching headlines that sold papers on the back of his personal tragedy. 

          He knew.  But there was nothing he could do to stop it.  And no way to make it any easier. 

          Maybe Buck, sitting there with one arm slung across the back of J.D.'s chair and his head buried firmly in the sand, knew some magic formula for softening the blow. 

          Maybe. 

          But Chris doubted it.

          The PR statement did okay, in his opinion.  Of course, it should have.  That was its job—its only job.  The newsfeeds carrying the conference live and unedited would duly record the acknowledgement of Internal Affairs that Agent Dunne's actions were in keeping with legal precedents, that they were reasonable under the circumstances, that procedures were properly and lawfully carried out, according to corroborating testimony from the store manager, that the entire community suffers from a tragedy—especially clever to omit the detail that the "victims" of the shooting were, in fact, injured in the act of committing a violent crime themselves—but Agent Dunne's actions require no further legal investigation.  Chris gave the writer grudging credit for nice phrasing in the details. 

          Too bad life and public opinion weren't all that rational. 

          The PR Division Head finished speaking and dozens of hands shot into the air.

          Chris didn't know whether to be annoyed or relieved when his cell phone vibrated against his hip.

          Travis.

          One glance at the TV confirmed that Travis had slipped away from the group on the podium.

          The man surely wasn't calling to ask how his part of the performance went. 

          Buck and Vin watched obliquely as Chris took himself out of the conference room. He answered his phone on the way to his office.

          Travis's voice was laced with regret.

          Chris went into his office and closed the door.

          "Has it been released to the press?" Chris asked, pressing his free hand to his temple where it seemed that a headache had permanently taken up residence.

          "Their phones are going off," Travis replied, his voice holding a tautness that Chris could hear right through the phone.

          He swore under his breath.

          "He'll want to know," Chris said finally, knowing full well that he would have to be the one to tell J.D. the news.  He would have to be the one to watch the grief and despair flame up in that pale face. 

          The timing was bad, he thought.  But no timing would ever be good.  Not for this.

          As he hung up, the thought struck him that it would be better if he told J.D. now, before he heard it from some reporter on the television.

          This time he did swear out loud.

          "J.D.!"

          Even around the corner in the conference room, Chris's holler made J.D. jump.  He swiveled abruptly in his chair but was torn between the questions on the screen and answering his boss.

          Of course, he decided, Chris wouldn't be shouting at him, let alone shouting at him in the middle of the press conference that could make or break his career, unless it was really, really important.

          A lump of fear stuck hard in his throat.

          Then Chris was in the bullpen door, waving him over, as Buck and the others glared at Chris, looking more than a little annoyed.

          The closer he got, the easier it was to see that whatever Chris wanted was not good.  It was written all over his face, visible simply in the way he was trying so hard not to scowl.

          Chris waited only long enough for J.D. to get into grasping distance, then he grabbed J.D. by both shoulders and pulled him into the bullpen proper, away from the televisions, and J.D. was so surprised by the sudden action that his protest died on his lips.

          On the TV behind him, a reporter had been called on to ask his question.

          "I'm sorry, J.D.," Chris said without a word of preamble or warning.  J.D. felt his heart sink another notch.

          Chris's lips moved at the same time that reporter somewhere behind him began to speak.  And the same words came at J.D. from in front and behind.

          "Kyle Lebec is dead."

          J.D. stared at Chris, trying hard to assimilate those words.  Two out of three.  Dead.  Fifteen years old. 

          "Shit," was all he managed to say and dropped into Buck's desk chair.  He looked up at Chris.

          "You know I did everything—"  J.D. started.

          Chris cut him off.  "Yes," he said firmly.  "You did." 

          J.D. stared up at him, white-faced.  Behind them in the conference room, the voices on the screen carried on, loud above the sudden, uncharacteristic quiet that had fallen over the five viewers.

          Buck materialized in the conference room doorway, his eyes fierce, his focus on J.D.  Chris gave ground, somewhat appalled at his own sense of relief as he let Buck swoop in to the rescue.  He reminded himself, as he took another step toward his office, that he wasn't being a coward.  He just wasn't going to be much good once J.D. decided he wanted to start talking.  Buck was better at this.  Let Buck handle it.  Chris just didn't want to stand there and hear it.

 

 

 

 

          Shana Morton's lawyer had told her in no uncertain terms that since the other two juveniles were clearly armed and acting with intent to rob the store, it would be better for her impending lawsuit to distance herself from the families of Kyle Lebec and Radim Taylor.  Best to separate herself from them completely—in all possible ways. 

          It was advice she could not take.

          Shana and Kierra Lebec had been new young mothers together only a block apart.  Both had taken their round-cheeked, chubby two year olds to the safe park, blocks away.  Even after good fortune and hard work brought Shana the chance to move into that safe neighborhood, still they had shared time, babysat, commiserated together over single motherhood, and the difficulty of finding responsible men, and tried to ease each other's way as best they could.

          Tyson and Kyle had been practically inseparable as toddlers.  The Two Musketeers, a teacher at the Head Start program had called them.  Shana had a framed picture at home of the two little boys, hardly even three yet, with their arms thrown about each other.  They feared nothing, so long as they were together.  Ty and Ky they called each other, right up until they had left Shana's apartment kitchen that afternoon and ended up here, in this hospital that stank of antiseptic and pain.

          Ky was gone.  The thought stole Shana's breath right out of her.  That fat-faced toddler with the head full of unruly black hair, and beautiful hazel eyes; the boy who grinned extra wide to show his missing teeth; the youth who was outgrowing his pants faster than his mama could replace them, who admired Ty's "tough" mom and ate more than Shana believed his skinny self could hold, was no more.  It was almost more than Shana could bear.  But bear it she did.  She had to. 

          She rocked Kierra's sob-wracked body back and forth, back and forth, feeling the tears and the saliva and the snot soaking right through the shoulder of her shirt and she hung on, arms wrapped tightly around the thin, shuddering shoulders, and murmured comforting sounds that had long ceased to be words. 

          She wondered to herself how she would ever tell Ty that Ky was gone.  She had a sudden memory, so strong she could almost see it painted over the white anonymous walls:  Both boys jumping from the very top of the jungle gym, neither one of them afraid, each willing to follow wherever the other led.  A chill of dread ran through her and for a moment, she wanted to run back to her son's room, to his side, and lay her hand on his head and remind him once again, as she had so often in the past, that just because Ky made a dumb decision, he didn't have to go lose his head over it, too. 

          Except it was much too late to take back dumb decisions.

          A sob tore up her own throat, and she swallowed it down, clutching fiercely at the keening mother in her arms.  It was her job to be the strong one here.

 

 

          The morning news had little more to say than to report the death of the second teenager accused in the Quick'n'EZ Mart robbery and that the ATF had declared that no further investigation would be made into agent J.D. Dunne's actions at the scene.  Then they played the same sound bites over and over again.  "No unlawful seizure and therefore no violation of the victims' rights under the Fourth Amendment", "acted in a reasonable manner under the circumstances".  Buck changed the radio station repeatedly but there was no escape.

          From the seat beside him, an agitated voice said, "Just leave it."

          Buck pulled his hand back from the knob.

          J.D. turned his head without lifting it from the headrest and looked over at Buck, dark sunglasses hiding his eyes. 

          He managed a wan smile.  "At least this way I only have to hear it four times an hour, not once for every single station in Denver."

          Buck managed a smile of his own and hoped it didn't come out as grim as he felt.

          Neither he nor J.D. got much sleep the previous night.  Casey had insisted she was coming over, that J.D. needed her, but Buck managed to get J.D. to convince her not to head out into the media maelstrom brewing in their apartment complex's parking lot.  With the release of J.D.'s name, the phone at the townhouse Buck and J.D. shared began ringing:  reporters asking questions, requesting interviews, making promises, friends with well-meaning inquiries, and casual acquaintances trying to satisfy their curiosity, and assorted lunatics offering both praise and death threats—until Buck yanked the cord out of the wall. 

          They pulled the shades and ignored the many new cars and vans that had sprouted up in the parking lot.  It was no use trying to sit and watch TV and pretend everything was normal.  Nor was TV distracting enough to make the wheels stop turning in J.D.'s head.  So they gave up, both of them, and turned in early, Buck in his room upstairs and J.D. in his room at the back of the downstairs, separated by walls and floors and the years of experience that told Buck that J.D. would not be sleeping much tonight either. 

          He had told himself that there was nothing he could do about it, at least not right at that moment, so he might as well get some sleep.  But the truth was his heart hurt too much for that.

          Both of them had appeared in the kitchen that morning with bleary and bloodshot eyes.  They talked little as they prepared for work.

          J.D. took a deep breath before leaving the safety of the building's tiny lobby and passing through the security doors into the parking lot.  Buck, being taller and bulkier, went first, J.D in step right behind him.

          Cameras snapped.  Boom microphones materialized overhead.  They were surrounded by the waiting press.  Buck didn't slow his stride one bit, nearly knocking one cameraman right over as he parted the sea of press to get to his truck.  He opened the driver side door for J.D. to slide along the bench seat.

          Then he started the engine, honked twice to give fair warning before he put the engine in reverse, and backed up, sending at least one cameraman running.

          Listening to the news, Buck still hoped that reason would prevail.  Internal Affairs and even the DA's office had found nothing wrong in J.D.'s judgment or conduct.  In a reasonable world, that would mean that the media circus should peter right out—and soon. 

          _Move along people,_ he thought.  _There's no story here._       

 

 

          Marty Carlson was not pleased.  His cold grey eyes got colder still before they threatened to disappear all together beneath the rust-colored ledge of his frowning eyebrows. 

          "How is it that we have a reporter whose father-in-law is a ranking ATF official and we can't manage to get any more information than out-of-town outfits who have come sniffing around _our_ story."

          He glared at Mary, as if that would help.

          Mary stood stock still under the hard gaze and did not flinch away.  She only gritted her teeth slightly at Marty's desire that she should exploit family ties for the sake of a story.  It was, after all, exactly what Marty Carlson would do in her place.  It was how he made it to his lofty editorial position.  But she was not Marty Carlson, and as she looked at the sour cynical man growing an ulcer under the pressure to sell more and more copies of a dying media, she was glad she could not see much of herself in him. 

          He continued glowering at her.  As his lips moved, she strained to hear his next mumbled words.  "If you won't use your connections, what good are you?"

          This was followed, loudly enough to make sure that Mary and anyone standing within eight feet of her could hear his every enunciated syllable, by "I want an interview.  I want an insider.  I want clips that no other news crew has.  Take a cameraman and go get one, or don't come back tomorrow."

          Mary didn't move a muscle, letting the words plink to the floor all around her, and leaving them lie, refusing to pick them up, as if that would make Carlson's threat all the more real, and she would not give him the satisfaction.

          Carlson looked like he was even more perturbed, which hardly seemed possible. 

          "Did I not make myself clear?" he snarled.

          "Perfectly clear," Mary said smoothly.

          "Then why are you still standing here?" he roared pointing at the glass door of his office.  "Get out and get my scoop."

          Her ears ringing with the sheer volume, she backed out of his office in a hurry.

          She took her coat from her cubicle, still seething with the words she had not said to Marty.  She was so busy trying to frame a response that would have been more suitable than just standing there, she did not see Elliot Koos come up behind her.

          "Man," Elliot said appreciatively, and the sound of his voice made her jump.  "He sounds mad."

          Mary gave him a sour smile.

          She knew what the young reporter wanted.  He wanted to go along.  Well, she did need a cameraman and a sound man.  Elliot was reasonably good at both.

          "Get your gear," she told him.  "Marty wants a sound bite."

          The younger man's face nearly split under the size of his grin, and he all but jogged back to his cubicle.

          Mary shook her head again, irritated for not giving Marty a piece of her mind, and worse, for knuckling under because here she was heading out to do his bidding. 

          Elliot drove, which gave Mary time to strategize, which was a lofty term for figuring out just how to make Marty happy without compromising her personal or professional ethics.  She was pretty sure she could get another appointment with someone from the ATF that hadn't been an official spokesperson, and since Agent Dunne had, thankfully, been acquitted of any wrongdoing, she might get a much longer conversation on the record.  What would make Marty happy would be a conversation with Agent Dunne himself, but Mary was reasonably certain that it would destroy any good relations she had left with Team Seven, men who, though perhaps not exactly friends, were certainly more to her than mere acquaintances.  She thought of the look on Chris Larabee's face at their last encounter tried not think about the possibility that events had already damaged that relationship.

          She was thinking about middle level bureaucracy.  She was thinking about other people on Orin's staff.  She was thinking about affable PR folks or even another assistant director or two who did not have her last name.  She realized too late that she had spent too long thinking because all at once, they were driving down the ramps in the the parking garage.  Elliot braked suddenly, barely jerking the car to a stop before it mounted the nearest concrete barrier..

          "There he is!" he cried out breathlessly, all but leaping out his open driver's side door. 

          Not a hundred feet away, she could make out the brown head of Buck Wilmington bobbing among a sea of boom mikes and flashing cameras.  Even from this distance, she could see he was bulldozing forward.  As a camera crew pulled a cable away from their reporter's feet, the crowd parted slightly, and Mary's heart sank.  J.D. was with him. 

          "Come on!" Elliot demanded urgently.  Even weighted down with equipment, he managed a pretty good run around the front of the truck.  He did not turn to wait for her.  He expected she would be sprinting right along beside him.  It was a reasonable expectation.  It was her job, she reminded herself sharply.  She slid from the passenger seat, squeezed out past the concrete barrier and jogged after Elliot and his equipment.

          By the time Mary and Elliot caught up with the jostling pack of reporters, Buck and J.D. had nearly reached the glass doors separating the federal building proper from the parking garage.  As far as she could ascertain, Buck had refused to answer a single question.  The scowl that darkened his features looked so out of place on that distinctive face.

          The glass door closed behind the two agents, and there was a collective muttering of disappointment as members of the press began to coil up cables and return to their waiting posts.  She had time to get an update from some other reporters she knew would talk to her.  They had attempted to speak with some other agents earlier in the morning, but the three men and one woman had little of interest to offer.  To see Agent Dunne himself show up seemed like an answer to a press corps prayer. 

          Mary frowned.  She wondered why J.D. hadn't taken some time off, why he hadn't backed off for a while to let the fervor blow over.  Surely Chris would have told him to take a few days off and let the dust settle.  Wouldn't he?

          There was no pointing or shouting or any specific indicator whatsoever, but Mary felt a jolt run through the knot of reporters and technicians.  Like some kind of amorphous sea creature, they seemed to move blindly together in a knot, toward the left.  Mary and Elliot moved with them until Mary finally got a clear look at their new target. 

          She swore to herself.  The unmistakable figure of Chris Larabee was climbing out of his truck.  He turned to face them, framing the shot nicely for them against the side of his big black truck.  He was clad entirely in black from head to toe, including black overcoat and black gloves.  The halo of blond hair against all that black was something of a shock.  But not nearly as much as the row of white teeth that glimmered in the dim light as his lips pulled back in a fleeting smile that was neither warm nor welcoming. 

          Elliot was far ahead of her when she realized that she had simply stopped.  Slowed right down and stopped, watching it all play out in front of her. 

          She had to give Chris credit, she thought grudgingly.  There were a fair number of people in that crowd and they were all but on top of him now, cameras and bodies and boom mikes shoved into his personal space, but he stood there, all calm and cool, not a crack in his composure, acting like they were not shouting at him, not taking his picture, like they were not even there at all.

          Just like Buck, he simply walked forward, not breaking stride even when nearly chest to chest with a backpedaling reporter.  The crowd parted.

          Mary moved backward behind a car.

          They ebbed and flowed and passed by her like some single-celled creature, Chris Larabee at the center.

          He went through the glass doors without a pause, smacking a camera right on the end of the lens as the door opened suddenly.  The cameraman's head jerked back in self defense.

          Elliot put down the camera and looked around for Mary.

          Only then did she realize that she was practically hiding, standing behind a car, and watching it all from a distance.  As soon as Marty Carlson heard that, she was so completely fired. 


	3. Chapter 3

          "Cretins and vultures," Ezra announced, brushing at his cream-colored cashmere scarf with one hand. 

          "Press still in the garage?" Josiah asked.

          "Present and armed," Ezra replied with a disdainful sniff. 

          He dropped into his chair still scowling.  "Look at this!" he said, holding out his scarf for general inspection. 

          The five other agents in the room made a pretense of inspecting the scarf.  There were precisely three dots of a non-descript brownish color marring its pristine surface.

          "Coffee?" Vin asked with feigned interest.

          Ezra glowered at him.  "Indeed."

          "We could send your scarf down to the lab to analyze the saliva and determine exactly which cretin and/or vulture it belonged to," Nathan suggested.

          Ezra had removed the scarf and was holding it in front of him in both hands.  "I might suggest you do that.  It would at least make a nice payment for taking time to mock me," Standish replied coldly.  He got a smile from Jackson in return.  "However, a DNA report will be unnecessary.  The coffee was my own."

          "Heaven's no!" Buck gasped, clutching at his heart.  "They made you spill your own coffee?  On yourself?  The horror!"

          The hand moved from Buck's heart to drape itself dramatically across his forehead.

          Ezra's glare should have caused Buck's head to start smoking.  "Very theatrical, Mr. Wilmington," he replied in a tone of pure acid. 

          "But fear not!" Ezra all but shouted, rolling his eyes toward Chris Larabee's office where Team Seven's leader had not so much as lifted his eyes from his computer monitor.  "Despite the evident damage to my personal property."  He raised his voice another notch.  "And the temptation to use my extensive vocabulary to communicate my extreme displeasure."  He paused.  Still not even a glance.  So he shouted the last words.  "Despite it all, I never said a word!  The press heard not one syllable from Ezra Standish."

          Every last one of his teammates winced at the volume.

          Chris, at last appeared in his doorway.  His gaze lingered on Ezra for a half a second; then he started handing out folders.  Paperwork to be finalized and completed and filed away on cases that still needed to be put to bed.

          Ezra sighed, reached into his desk drawer for his Harry and David tin of wardrobe emergency supplies and went off to the kitchenette to work on resurrecting his poor scarf.  After all, keeping a stain from settling in and making itself at home was a matter of far more urgency than finishing the filing on a closed case.  No matter what Chris Larabee might say. 

          Of course, Chris Larabee wasn't saying a whole lot these days.  Meaning the very little he was saying was far less than the little he usually said.  Which, Ezra reflected, if you knew Chris Larabee, actually said a whole lot.  This was a fact which Ezra was determined not to dwell on.  At least not until he had saved his scarf and poured himself another cup of coffee, the decency of which was now very much a matter of chance and good fortune.

          He scowled at the stains on his scarf and at the coffee maker too.

          At least Chris had shown the good sense not to ask any of them whether they had talked to the press.  Or to remind them not to talk to the press.  At least he knew better than to entertain the idea that they could be that stupid. 

          At least there was that.

          Ezra spread his scarf out on the table to dry, satisfied that the patient would live, and went back to his desk in the too-quiet bullpen with his too-quiet teammates with their too-focused heads bent over cases that were too cold and too finished to require that kind of attention.  He tried not to sigh and went about dotting the remaining "i's" and here and there crossing a leftover "t".

          J.D.'s fourth or fifth deep sigh was the straw that broke the camel's back.  This time even Chris glowered at the kid, but he saved his better glare for Buck, who read the "I told you not to bring him here," as clearly as if the words had been written in the air in front of him. 

          The accusation was, of course, unfair because it wasn't so much that Buck brought J.D. to the office as Buck prevented J.D. from coming into the office alone.  Nevertheless, he was in no mood to justify his actions to a man who practically made a policy to never justify his own.  Therefore he ignored the glower and its intended message, but he took the cue. 

          "Hey!" he said brightly.  "We've all been working mighty hard here.  Whaddya say we break for lunch?"

          J.D. rubbed his eyes and looked up at the clock.

          "It's a mite early isn't it?" Josiah asked, his finger marking the place in the file where he had left off.

          Buck shrugged.  "Avoid the rush," he said.  Hell, it was after eleven.

          He pulled menus out of his desk.  "We can order in."

          "Avoid the press," Ezra noted.

          "That, too," Buck agreed.

          He pushed the menus across the desktop toward his teammates.

          Vin pushed back his chair and moved into Larabee's doorway, leaning casually on the jamb.

          "You eating?" Vin asked as soon as Chris looked up.

          _No._

          That was the answer written all over Chris's face.  No, he wasn't eating.  No, he didn't _need_ to eat something.  No, he wasn't hungry.  No, he didn't want to come out and make nice with the boys.  No, he didn’t want any of that. 

          Vin read it.  He knew all that.  Like he knew the one thing that Chris wanted was for the whole mess to go away, for J.D.'s life to pick up where it left off before, for J.D. to go back to being an irrepressible, optimistic, crime-fighting ball of energy, Robin to Buck's Batman.  That's what Chris wanted, and he didn't give a shit about eating or sleeping or just about anything else until that happened.  _If_ it happened. 

          Eventually, Vin knew, no matter how notoriously obstinate or downright mule-headed Chris was, and no matter how long Buck could pretend not to see what was right in front of his nose, both of them were eventually going to have to accept that neither of them could turn back time.  Eventually, they would realize that they couldn’t change the fact that J.D.'s life wouldn't ever be the same after this.  As far as Vin was concerned, they all knew far too much about that kind of thing.

          It was bad enough watching J.D. learning it the hard way without Chris's penchant for taking responsibility for circumstances that weren't his fault or Buck's determination to be the personal caretaker of the people he decided he cared about.  The man's protective streak had earned him the title Mama Bear—which Vin really hoped Buck never found out. 

          When the realization finally came home to Chris and Buck that, no matter what they or anyone else on the team did, J.D. had to fight this particular battle alone, Vin knew it wasn't going to be pretty.

          Vin knew all that, but he also knew better than to say so. 

          He simply waited in silence until Chris relented and pushed his chair back. 

          "All right," was all Chris said.

          One corner of Vin's mouth quirked up and he nodded once before going back to his desk to bask in the chatter as his teammates debated what to order and where to order it from.

          When the decision was made, Larabee slapped money down on the edge of the nearest desk, without counting it or saying anything at all.  Buck picked it up, counted it at a glance, and folded it neatly, as Larabee went back into his office.

          J.D. pushed money at him, as the others dug into their wallets.

          He waved them all off with a grunt, pushing J.D.'s money away with one hand. 

          "Let me get the tip at least," J.D. said.  After all, he was the reason they were staying inside for lunch.

          "It's covered," Buck repeated firmly as he picked up the phone.

          J.D. looked away.  There was no point arguing with a brick wall. 

          At quarter to noon, Buck appeared in Chris's doorway with a paper plate and two greasy slices of the best pizza within a fifteen-block radius.

          Chris hardly even looked up, just waved at him to set the plate down on the desk. 

          Buck opened his mouth to give his boss a smart aleck, "You bought it.  You ought to eat it." 

          But then looking at the grim cast of Chris's face, Buck decided against it. 

          Instead, he put the plate down on the corner of the desk and left. 

          Chris watched Buck go from the corner of his eye. 

          The pizza was plenty cold by two o'clock, when Chris got around to trying it but he didn't feel much like eating, anyway.

          At six, he decided to put it in the fridge.  He found a pizza box crammed into the tiny fridge in the kitchenette.  He pried it out with his fingers and stuffed his two slices inside beside the paltry remains of what looked like it had been a "Garbage" pizza, the works, topped with everything, including anchovies and pineapple.  Looking at it, Chris was frankly surprised so little of it was left—and he was glad Buck had brought him plain old pepperoni instead.  He closed the bent and battered box and wrestled it back into the tiny refrigerator, shoving until the door closed again.

          He passed back through the silent bullpen.  Buck and J.D. had slipped out with a crowd of other agents and staff at the regulation quitting time, while Vin and Josiah played decoy for the press.  Nathan and Ezra stayed for a few minutes longer, heads bent over a set of interview notes.  Then they left together.  There was security in numbers.  He should have gone with them.

          He glowered at the daylight fading outside his window.  He couldn't exactly look back on this day as a successful one.  It had little to show for itself.  It would be a mercy to simply call it finished, though he didn't expect tomorrow to be any less of a farce, with him handing out work and his agents doing it as if it were their only concern, while the truth was they were all just waiting for the hammer to drop. 

          Everyone except J.D., the one on whom the hammer was going to fall when it did— _if_ it did—because Chris sincerely doubted that anyone had told him that matters could still get worse.  Chris knew deep down in his gut that Buck was pretending like he didn't know it either because Buck didn't have the heart to have to explain it to J.D.  Never mind that reality was eventually going to stick its ugly head up and blow Buck's little pretense all to hell.  Buck didn't tend to worry about matters like that—or much of anything else really—until they actually did blow up in his face.  And most of the time, damn him, it seemed to work out just fine—for Buck.

          Unfortunately, Chris wasn't built that way.  Worrying about contingencies and exit strategies was in his job description—and for good reason.  He had already left two messages for J.D.'s lawyer, but the lawyer hadn't called back.  And probably wouldn't.  And probably shouldn't.  After all, Chris wasn't exactly included in lawyer-client privileges and Lawford didn't have to answer to Chris at all as to whether he had informed J.D. about the potential consequences still to come. 

          No, Chris decided, J.D. was probably just waiting around impatiently for the press to get tired or find a more titillating scandal to exploit.  He had no fucking idea…

          The thought drove him toward the door 

          Hardly any of the press was in evidence when he entered the garage.  The two or three who made to approach him changed their minds.  He didn't know whether it was the look on his face or the way he had treated them this morning.  He didn't much care, so long as they left him alone.

          Too restless and angry with the world, he drove around for a while, trying to dissipate his bad mood before he went home to feed the horses. 

          The sky had begun to show the oranges and pinks that heralded a beautiful sunset, their colors mirrored in the scraggly blue and orange and pink wildflowers struggling to survive alongside the highway.

          It was a last minute decision to stop and buy flowers.  And it wasn't until he did that he knew where he was going. 

 

 

          Kyle Lebec was buried under a glorious sunset in a donated grave.  The preacher intoned the usual words of solace and comfort and hope and faith, Shana supposed.  She wasn't really listening.  She was looking at the sunset, at the way its light, first golden and then lavender, crept down out of the sky and spilled over rows and rows of white marble and gray granite markers.  Creeping toward them, creeping, unstoppable to envelop them where they stood around that awful, gaping hole in the ground. 

          She had both hands on Kierra's thin shoulders, shoulders that shook with sobs and the spent strength of a body too small and slender to have held the vast ocean of tears it had wept.  And too small and slender to hold the enormous black grief that had forced its way into their lives. 

          Kierra didn't go to any church, so there had been no church service for Ky.  There had been no viewing with mourners to come and see.  Perhaps it was a mercy, Shana thought, glancing over the few other mourners gathered at the gravesite in the waning day.  Radim's people, Kierra's own kin, were not there.  Kierra had tried hard to understand that.  Shana thought they ought to be too ashamed to come after Radim had dragged Ky down with him to his death. 

          She shook that thought from her head and chose instead to look at who did come to pay their respects and say their goodbyes.  A few people Shana had known from Kierra's neighborhood and a few more boys from school along with their parents stood around the grave.  She noted how the parents seemed to keep their boys tightly beside them, as if Kyle had died from some sickness disease they were afraid their children might catch.  As if poverty and boredom and teenage stupidity were diseases.  If only they could be cured so easily…

          The preacher droned on, and Shana thought how this preacher donated his services just like some anonymous good citizen donated the grave and a funeral home had donated the casket.  Charity to that poor mother of that poor child from the news.

          No one but those gathered here would remember Ky, not really.  None of them would remember Ky the way his mother would, and the way she and Ty would.  No one would remember how he had laughed and how beautiful his smile was and how he could say the stupidest things just to make Ty laugh and blow soda out of his nose.  No one would remember that.  No one would feel its absence from the world.  No one but them. 

          But all the good citizens of their city would recall how they had stood up against injustice and racism and classism, against violence and police brutality.  In years to come, they would recall how they had donated money and gravesites and services so that poor boy would get a decent burial.  Her stomach clenched hard and she tried to focus on the preacher's words of hope and faith and forgiveness. 

          But she couldn't.  Instead she held Kierra's shoulders firmly and drew her own strength from her anger at the world and all the self-righteous good citizens that inhabited it. 

          Kierra's knees went out from under her when they lowered the casket into the grave, carrying Shana down with her to her knees in the grass as the casket bumped to a stop.  She sobbed brokenly when the first shovels full of dank earth went into the hole.  Shana put her cheek against Kierra's shoulder and murmured words of comfort if only to drown out Kierra's own half-hiccupped calling to her son, her baby, her only child. 

          She got Kierra up off the grass.  The mourners began to come forward to offer their words of condolence.  Shana nodded to each one in turn, feeling her face grow fierce.  They all said their piece and turned to go.  She watched them with her eyes on fire. 

          They could go.  They need not see what it was for a mother to leave her only child in the earth.  They need not watch as Shana pulled her away from the sight of earth hitting the wooden box in that hole in the ground.

          She got Kierra walking, got her headed away from the gravesite into the neat grassy rows of clean, white markers, still murmuring words she hoped were words of strength.

          From nowhere, a man with shiny slicked-down hair and an expensive-looking suit joined them.  For a moment Shana thought he was from the funeral home or something and she straightened her shoulders.  She didn't need him right now either.  It was a long walk to the car and she needed to keep Kierra's feet moving, high heels sinking into the sod at each step.  She had no time to stop and find out what this man wanted. 

          He didn't speak, though, simply took one of Kierra's hands and helped her navigate the long walk to where the car waited.  Kierra's grateful glance told Shana that this was no stranger.  Shana didn't ask, though. 

          They walked in silence for several more yards, Kierra now controlling the final hiccupping throes of her sobs.  The man then chose to introduce himself.  Yes, Shana had heard of him:  Cyril D'Aprix, head of a local community action league.  She introduced herself as politely as she could manage and hoped he wasn't about to try to enlist her in his organization's mission.  Not that she didn't believe in their mission, but walking back from burying her son's best friend was not the time to ask her to focus on being civic minded. 

They were twenty yards from the car when the man drew to a sudden halt.

His face got hard and he drew himself up straight. Recovering his composure, he patted Kierra's hand and said, "I'll be right back, Ms. Lebec."

          "You just go on to the car," he told Shana sternly.  More stonily he added, "I'll take care of this."

          Shana looked at him bewilderedly.  She kept walking.  Cyril D'Aprix marched straight across the rows of headstones, heading off to the right.

          She followed the direction of his walk to a spot up above the place where Ky now lay.  There was another man there.  A tall, blond man in a black overcoat.  D'Aprix was shouting at him, and Shana could nearly make out the words.  The blond man jerked as he whirled around, surprised to have been found out.

          She and Kierra had reached the car.  Shana unlocked the door and Kierra plumped heavily down onto the bench seat.

          She should have driven away.  She should have climbed in and taken Kierra right back to her own apartment, several blocks away from the apartment Ky and Kierra had shared together.  She should have left it all to D'Aprix.  Shana knew all that, even as she squeezed Kierra's hand around another wad of fresh tissues and shut the door.  On tiptoe, heels out of the dirt, she followed D'Aprix's track right to this man who had the nerve to stand up on the hill like some kind of overseer, standing there just to make sure a boy got lowered into his grave.

          D'Aprix had reached him now and was shaking one shaming finger at him. 

          The breeze shifted, and Shana couldn't hear the words.  She saw the blond man pull himself up to his full height, which was considerably taller than Cyril D'Aprix, but D'Aprix was not intimidated by the show.  Clearly, he had fought more formidable enemies.  D'Aprix's whole body was canted forward now, leaning over the white marble monument in front of him, in the man's space, that finger still shaking a clear warning.  D'Aprix's face was a crumpled mask of anger.

          Now Shana was close enough to catch a few of the words.  DuPree's voice was louder now, risen not quite to shouting, more to the level of preaching.  She recognized his posture—speechifying.  But he was speaking words of outrage.  "…dare you violate this sacred place, this sacred occasion.  Isn't it enough that instruments of a racist and unjust government brought this boy down?  Did you come to make sure he was good and dead?"  D'Aprix stopped suddenly when he noticed Shana.

          The blond man looked taken aback at both the words and the sudden stop in the diatribe.

          "I told you to get Ms. Lebec to the car," D'Aprix said to Shana, his voice still vibrating with indignation.

          She stared at the blond man and wondered why he looked familiar.  She was  sure she had never spoken to him before.  No matter.  She put the thought aside.  Kierra was down there in the car, and Kierra was more important right now.

          Shana meant to turn back and let D'Aprix sink his teeth into this man good, but something in the man's face caught her before she turned away.  She stared at him and took a step in the men's direction and then another until she was almost at D'Aprix's shoulder. 

          D'Aprix turned to speak to her.  Probably to tell her again to go back to the car and let him handle this.  Shana held up her hand.  It was a reflex, really, something she had learned in fifteen years of motherhood.  D'Aprix responded like a man who had had a mother of his own.  He stopped talking.

          Shana turned furious eyes on the taller man.

          "Who are you?" she demanded. 

          She kept her voice as steady, as steely as she could, and she ignored the prickling in her eyes that told her the tears she had fought so hard to hold back were rising over her carefully constructed defenses.  She held fast. 

          Shana glared at the man with blazing eyes and waited for the response he owed her.

          The man inhaled, the sun right behind him now, lighting up his hair like a halo.  His face was drawn but inscrutable, seeming exactly what D'Aprix had said, except there was something in the stiffness across his shoulders.  Something in his eyes as he looked at her.

          "Chris Larabee," he said.  She hadn't expected his voice to be so soft.  Nor did she expect his next words.  "Denver ATF."

          "And you're right," he added, casting a glance at Cyril before looking back at Shana.  "I shouldn't be here right now."

          Hands in the pocket of his overcoat, he rocked back once on his heels, gave a civil nod to Cyril D'Aprix and quietly excused himself to Shana.  She watched him stride away in the opposite direction of her car.  A black truck was parked down a short hill and on the road.  Then the setting sun seemed to swallow all but the dark spot of his overcoat.

          D'Aprix was talking to her.  "He's the head of the ATF Team.  He's Agent J.D. Dunne's boss."

          He was waiting for her to respond.  She wasn't quick enough. 

          "Agent J.D. Dunne is the agent who shot Kyle," D'Aprix said somewhat impatiently.

          "I know who Agent Dunne is," she said curtly.  How could she not know the name of the man who shot her boy?

          "Yes, of course," D'Aprix said as if he'd only just realized why Shana had cause to know this man's name.  "Rest assured," he informed her.  "There will be an official complaint made tomorrow at this kind of highhanded harrassment."

          She looked sideways at him, and they both watched until Chris Larabee, Denver ATF, got into his vehicle and drove off in the other direction.

          Then D'Aprix started toward his own car, parked behind Shana's.

          He turned to wait for her.

          She cast another glance down at the grave markers at her feet just to be sure before catching up with Cyril.

          She wondered if D'Aprix had noticed the two beautiful white headstones, identical except that one was smaller than the other.  "Sarah Larabee" read the larger one, "Beloved wife and mother."  And beside it "Adam Larabee.  Cherished child."

 

 

          The next morning wasn't likely to improve any for Team Seven's Senior Agent.  PR was deadly serious about the ATF's public image.  Chris didn't even bother with his first cup of coffee.  Since, as he figured it, Cyril D'Aprix's Community Action League would wait until the building was good and full before he made his _o-fish-all_ complaint, immediately after which, Chris would receive a summons to go upstairs—again—and get reamed out by PR and probably Travis, too, for his incredible lapse in judgment, Chris decided it would be better if he weren't all sharp as a tack, caffeinated, and primed for fighting when he got up there. 

          As it turned out, he didn't have long to wait.  

          The deputy to the head of Public Relations made a personal appearance to inform Chris a.) how important Public Relations were, particularly at a time like this, and b.) how hard the ATF and law enforcement in general worked to improve community relations and gain the trust of the citizens they protect and c.) how Chris's indiscretion had damaged that trust at a critical time _and_ d.) had the added benefit of making Agent J.D. Dunne's precarious position in the public eye that much worse.  _Footnote to all of the above:_   PR, of course, was already working on damage control should Mr. D'Aprix get a chance to vent his spleen on the news.

          Travis was more placating than Chris had expected.  He quite reasonably pointed out, in a tone that seemed to indicate that Travis had pointed this out at least once before, that a.) Agent Larabee had every right to visit that particular cemetery and that b.) the Lebec funeral had been a private service and therefore the date and time had not been publicized simply to avoid the curious and the activist crowds that might turn one family's personal grief into a media event.  Ergo, c.) Agent Larabee wasn't likely to have known that the service was even going on.  And, as regards the footnote, Travis expressed quite succinctly that from what he had heard, it seemed that PR might have done a better job of explaining the unfortunate coincidence.

          PR replied that they needed to tread carefully lest it look like the ATF was trying to cover up bad behavior on their agents' part and the entire coincidence angle would sound much too convenient to be credible.  Wouldn't it? 

          _Ah,_ Chris thought sourly.  He should be used to federal agencies and their Orwellian relationship to the truth by now.  Yet it never ceased to surprise him when truth was what could be massaged into looking believable.  Otherwise it was unusable. 

          From Chris's point of view, the truth here was pretty clear.  He had a right to visit his family's graves when he wanted to.  He'd had no idea the funeral was scheduled for that day or that time, and truth to tell, although he had noticed the graveside service was happening, he hadn't actually watched it or listened in.  He was not in the habit of intruding on other people's grief.  So really, it wasn't a lapse of judgment.  It was bad timing and bad luck and all perfectly innocent. 

          Chris could have said all that, but he didn't.  The truth was, he couldn't believe he had been so stupid, either. 

          When it was finally his turn to speak, he said simply" It won't happen again."

          And it wouldn't, he thought firmly.  After all, a man with his kind of information connections shouldn't make those kinds of mistakes.

          Vin threw Chris a sidelong glance as he came back to the bullpen, presumably just to see if the Team Leader was still in one piece. 

          Chris went into his office and closed the door just long enough to make a few phone calls to a few buddies in the DPD, officers and commanders who knew what it was like when a bust went bad, and who promised to keep tabs on scuttlebutt on the street and keep him privately in the loop.

          He figured sourly that he'd probably find out before J.D. did when the lawsuits started rolling in. 

          He opened the door again and surveyed the bullpen.  He'd been asked to collect the files on the Stanson Case and transfer them over to Team Eight.  Teams Two and Three had been asked to finish two other small cases.  The news would not go over well. 

          Chris didn't expect they'd be handed a fresh case anytime soon.  Whether they were being punished for the bad public relations, or being protected from more negative exposure was a matter of conjecture.  And probably, Chris thought cynically, depended on who was answering the question.  But Chris knew the longer they stayed working on the cold and the old, the more it would look like the ATF was trying to hide them away for some suspicious reason.  Nothing like hanging a big scarlet letter over their heads.  Surely PR would want to avoid something like that, he thought sourly, assuming P.R. had any idea what fieldwork was like.

          After the phone calls, one fact coalesced into sharp relief.  Buck wasn't out milking his many intelligence sources for all they were worth.  Chris knew how well Buck could work his network of contacts, yet he hadn't even tried.  Instead, he was sitting with his head in the sand, like doomsday wasn't about to fall on J.D., like he just didn't want to know when holy hell was going to start raining down

          There was no doubt that Buck was one hell of a smart guy.  He'd been a Navy Seal and police detective before he became a federal agent.  There was no doubt of his intelligence or his abilities.  But no one could play thickheaded better than Buck Wilmington, and if the man was determined to be deliberately obtuse, then nothing short of a swift kick in the ass was going to change his mind.

          _God damn him_ , Chris thought.  Now was not the time to be sitting around with their heads up their asses.  Buck sure as hell ought to recognize the calm before the storm when he saw it.  And if he refused to see it, or prepare for it, then surely any one of four other idiots out in the bullpen ought to be pointing him in the right direction. 

          He really needed that cup of coffee. 

          He passed his hand over the back of J.D.'s chair on his way to the kitchenette, and J.D. flashed him a grateful look.  Gratitude for something as meaningless as that.  Chris wished he had a bigger mug. 

          A bigger mug and a bottle of scotch. 

 

 

          That evening Chris noticed a significantly smaller number of vehicles in and around the parking garage, and he almost smiled. 

          The next morning, even J.D. and Buck made it in without having to bob, weave, or intimidate anyone on the way.

          And the following day, Chris, sitting in his office, rolled his eyes and smiled in spite of himself to hear Buck pick an argument with the kid, just like that.  A stupid argument, too.  But it was only a matter of seconds before J.D. enlisted Vin's help and only a few minutes after that before Ezra told them all the entire discussion was both ridiculous and beneath their collective intelligence and if they had an ounce of either sense or taste then they wouldn't be having said discussion at all.  After that, it was three on one, with Josiah grinning gleefully to himself, and Nathan rolling his eyes on the sidelines.

          Buck caught Chris watching and flashed him a smug grin.

          It was nice to see. 

          It was even nicer to have to go out there and tell the children to get back to work.

          But he couldn't ignore the nagging suspicion in his gut, as his inbox remained devoid of new assignments.  He waited until after lunch, until the six men in the bullpen were working and talking, jostling for space, and arguing good naturedly.  He waited until Vin bounced a paper wad off the side of J.D.'s head and told him he didn't know what he was talking about.  He waited until J.D. protested indignantly and started to speak technical language that Chris was sure Vin didn't understand or give a crap about.  He just sat there with the corners of his mouth turned up just slightly enough to show Chris that the sniper was getting their tech expert riled up just for the fun of it.  He waited until Josiah started in on a parable about the possible perils of technology and for Nathan to chime in about its benefits to modern medicine.  When Buck stated, as he liked to do in discussions like this, that the first industry to see the potential beneficial applications of new technologies is usually the pornography industry, then Chris punched an extension on his phone. 

          Buck looked surprised when he answered, but he covered it quickly.  The banter continued around him.

          "I need you to go on a fact-finding mission," Chris said. 

          Buck made a noncommittal "I'm listening" kind of sound. 

          "I want you to find out when we're going to get some new cases."

          Buck rotated his chair slightly sideways to look at Chris. 

          "You wanna give me any more details than that?" he asked into the phone.

          "I don't have any more details than that," Chris replied tersely. 

          Buck pursed his lips and glowered at him.  He wanted to go into the office and ask Chris just what burr had got under his saddle, now when J.D. was slowly starting to act like his old self, but if Larabee had wanted to have a face to face conversation with him, or the rest of the team to know about it, then he wouldn’t have used the phone.

          Still, Buck admitted grudgingly to himself, he was starting to get a little curious about what the holdup was in getting new cases.  But he was less concerned about that than about J.D.  Still, leave it to Chris to have his priorities in a whole other order.  Besides, Buck knew that it wasn't like he really had a choice whether he should go fact-finding or not.  He knew when he had been given an order. 

          "Yeah," he said, as he hung up.

          "Excuse me, ladies," Buck said loudly, rising from his chair and hitching up his pants.  He jerked his thumb toward the door.  "Seems some lovelies on the eighth floor have been missing my attention."

          He waggled his eyebrows and added, "Wouldn't want to disappoint them."

          J.D. let out a snort of disgust.  "If you're not back by four-thirty, I'm leaving without you."

          "I drove," Buck pointed out from the doorway.

          J.D. waited until Buck was out of sight to open Buck's desk drawer and pull out the keys to Buck's truck.  He dangled the key ring from his right hand, giving it a little shake to make the keys jangle against each other nicely.  "See if that stops me," J.D. said to no one in particular.

          Vin grinned even wider.

          It was toward the end of the day, when Chris's phone rang:  DPD, Captain Bryson, calling to tell him to batten down the hatches.  Sources suggested that the storm was on its way.

 

 

          Shana Morton stared blankly at the doctor's face.  It was an earnest face.  A competent face.  An experienced face.  But it was speaking words she just couldn't comprehend. 

          "Mrs. Morton," the doctor said. 

          She did not answer.

          "Mrs. Morton," he repeated more firmly, and this time he reached for her hand.

          She was sitting in an empty hallway outside Tyson's room.  She remembered the doctor had asked her to come out into the hall with him.  She didn't remember sitting down in this hard plastic chair.

          She looked at the doctor.

          He squeezed her hand.

          "I'm sorry," he said quietly.

          She shook her head.  "But…," she tried again.  "But he was getting better!"

          The doctor's face fell.

          "He was getting better!" she repeated more firmly, as if saying it would make it so.

          His eyes never left her face but she watched him take a deeper breath, being patient, as if telling her the words again could really make her understand.

          Fluids building up.  Kidney failure.  Beginning of renal failure.  Matter of time. 

          She stared at the doctor.  "His birthday is a week from Monday."  Her voice faltered.

          "I am sorry," he repeated.  And from the way he said it, she knew he really was. 

          He looked at her.  "Is there someone you can call?" he asked. 

          She did not answer.

          He was holding both her hands now.  "It would be good for you to have someone to help," he said.  "There are a lot of decisions you're going to have to make."

          She stared at him.  It wasn't like she didn't understand the words.  Part of her mind understood very well.  But she couldn't get her heart to listen.

          She looked at the doctor.  She opened her mouth to protest.  _He was getting better!_

          _But no_ , a small voice somewhere in the back of her mind protested.  He wasn't getting better.  _And now you have to understand,_ said the voice.  _You have to make arrangements.  You have to be strong._

          "No," she answered finally.  "There's no one I can call."

          The doctor scribbled a name and a phone number on a prescription pad.  "He's a hospital chaplain," the doctor said.  "He has a lot of information and he gives good advice." 

          He squeezed her hand one more time and got up from his chair.  His arms flapped out uselessly from his sides.  He wore the eyes of a person who wanted to say more, but he turned away instead.  He and his bright white coat faded up the hallway. 

          Shana stared at the paper he had given her for a moment.  Then she pushed it into her pocket.  Her fingers brushed against a sharp cardboard corner.  She pulled out a business card.  Her lawyer, she noted.  It crossed her mind, numbly that the laundry needed to be done.  Her eyes blurred and the words dissolved away.  She brushed the back of her hand across her eyes and willed herself not to cry. 

          Not now.  Not yet.

          She slid shakily back into the chair she had been sitting in when the doctor asked her to step into the hall.  She wrapped her hand around Tyson's limp one, took a steadying breath, and began speaking to him again, firmly, quietly, picking up right where she left off.

 

 

          Buck knew the results of his fact-finding mission were less than what Chris was hoping for.  In a few cool hours spent schmoozing up people who, by virtue of clerical and administrative jobs pushing paperwork around, were generally in the know about office gossip and personnel-related bureau affairs, Buck had managed to garner only that Team Seven was being kept on a low profile " until all this blows over."  That and a couple of promising new phone numbers for his black book.  All in all, not very impressive. 

          The information Buck brought back was, unfortunately, about what Chris expected.  He would have liked to know what the "this" in the phrase "until all this blows over" referred to specifically, in the minds of the brass.  But Buck didn't know.  He had made a few inquiries, but low profile or not, he really couldn't spend a whole afternoon chatting up the clerical staff and not expect someone to notice.

          It was a point well taken.

          "Why don't you just go ask Travis?" Buck had suggested.

          That was a thought, too, but Chris wasn't ready to go back up there yet.  He needed to let a few things blow over himself before he could start pestering Travis to screw what the brass wanted and let Team Seven get back to doing what they did best.  He imagined that sort of discussion wouldn't go over particularly well right now. 

          If he had any sense at all, he'd start keeping a lower profile himself.  But, realistically, he never did have that kind of sense.  Not where his men were involved anyway.

          "Did you talk to J.D. yet?" Chris asked Buck, catching him just at the office door.

          "'Bout what?" Buck drawled out without even turning around.

          Chris bit off a growl and spent one nanosecond contemplating how much fun it would be to actually give the thickheaded idiot a sharp kick in the ass.  Instead he took a breath.  If Buck was going to play stupid, then Chris was going to lay it out for him.

          "Tyson Morton is getting worse," Chris said succinctly. 

          Buck's head came around to look at Chris.  There was only so much ignorance the man could believably feign after all. 

          "You better talk to J.D. about what's going to happen if he lives."  Chris said icily.  "And if he dies."

          Buck's jaw tightened fractionally as he regarded Chris.  He'd spent the last damn week sheltering the kid from all the fallout; drawing, pushing, pulling, and bringing him back into the fold, making damn sure he knew he was cared about and valued and needed, that his teammates stood by him, that he had acted professionally.  That, although tragic, it was clear this situation was not his fault.  And dammit all, it was working!  Today was proof.  There was laughing.  There was joking.  There was a spark.  The kid was coming back. 

          Apparently, Chris had his head too far up the bureau's big uncaring ass to notice.  Otherwise Buck couldn't figure out how Chris could even ask him to shatter the kid's world again. 

          Besides, J.D. had invited Casey over tonight.  Normally, they would go out, eat, dance, listen to music, catch a movie, do something fun, but J.D. still felt too exposed out on the town, like people would recognize him or point him out.  Or, as Buck suspected, J.D. wasn't sure he had a right to be out living his life and enjoying himself while those boys were still in the hospital.

          Boy.  Not boys, Buck corrected himself abruptly.  And Tyson Morton looked like he was going downhill.

          Buck swore. 

          He told himself that fortifying defensive positions was Chris's job.  Buck never liked borrowing tomorrow's troubles for today.  But dammit if a little nagging piece of his trained intelligence instincts didn't keep arguing right back that forewarned is forearmed. 

          Maybe J.D. ought to be reminded about what seemed more and more likely to be coming at him, but, Buck resolved, he didn't have to hear it right now.  Not when Casey had a nice evening planned.  He could at least let the kid enjoy this one night.

          He left the office without promising Chris anything. 

          As for Buck, he facilitated J.D. and Casey's pleasant evening, and his own, by heading off for a casual dinner with one of his new "friends" from his fact-finding mission, whom he identified to J.D. both by first name and by describing her silhouette in the air with both hands.  Casey rolled her eyes, but the gesture had little impact considering it was accompanied by one of her sweet, good-natured smiles.

          "You two have fun now," Buck said, his voice low and sultry and laced with just enough innuendo to get under J.D.'s skin.

          "Go already," J.D. told him shortly, walking away from Casey and into the kitchen.

          Buck grinned at that.  The kid hated when Buck talked like that in front of Casey.  He winked at Casey and she grinned back.  Then he was gone, leaving them to Chinese take-out, popcorn, and a movie that Casey brought over. 

          Buck figured to be good and gone long enough to let them have a little fun, whatever that meant in J.D. and Casey's relationship this week.  Those two ran hot and cold so often they ought to be a pair of water taps.  He smiled to himself at his own wit and contemplation of a pleasant evening that would hopefully lay important groundwork for future pleasant evenings. 

          Hours later, he came back well-pleased and whistling.  Dinner had been good.  The microbrewery beer had been exceptional, and the company was both warm and easy on the eyes.  An evening well and happily spent.

          He made sure to jingle his keys extra loudly and to make a lot of unnecessary noise rattling the doorknob as he unlocked the apartment door.  He opened the door slowly, and since no one hollered for him to "just come in already" and no one scurried suddenly into J.D.'s room, the door of which stood wide open at the end of the downstairs hall, Buck came right in.  The flickering light from the living room told him the TV was still on, but there was no sound coming from it.  He approached cautiously.

          Pausing at the corner of the kitchen doorway to appraise the situation, he could see that both J.D. and Casey were sitting in the living room.  For a second he hoped perhaps he really was interrupting something because he could give the kid shit about it later.  More importantly, it would also mean that J.D. was thinking about something other than the case. 

          Buck's gut instincts told him he was being way too optimistic. 

          J.D. and Casey were sitting close together on the couch.  Casey, body turned to face J.D., gripped his arm, while both of J.D.'s hands were clasped between his knees and his head was down.  Neither of them even seemed to notice Buck had come back, despite the pains he had taken for his return to be heard.

          _Shit_ , Buck thought.  He cleared his throat.

          Casey's head whirled around to face him and at the look on her face, Buck's heart sank into his stomach.

          It was a silent plea if ever Buck saw one.  He could see now that the late news was on the TV.  The weatherman's mouth moved soundlessly through the local forecast. 

          Buck came around the armchair to stand right in front of J.D.  He didn't look up, but Casey did.  She shook her head ever so slowly, and Buck wasn't sure whether that meant that Buck shouldn't bother asking what had happened or she just didn't know what to do.  Maybe both.

          Buck reached for the controller and switched off the TV.

          "I'm sorry, Case," J.D.'s voice came, muffled from his bowed head.

          "J.D., I'm sure..." She stopped and tried again.  "We all know you didn't…"  J.D.'s knuckles whitened slightly where his hands were clasped together, and she trailed off. 

          This time when she turned her face back up to look at Buck, tears glistened unshed in her eyes.

          Buck stifled his grimace and gave her a little smile of understanding, and gestured ever so slightly with his head toward the door.

          She looked both relieved and disappointed. 

          "We were watching the news," she blurted out as J.D.'s knuckles turned a shade whiter.  "And they said...," she stopped and looked sideways at J.D.  Then she licked her lips. 

          Buck intervened. 

          "I heard," he said quickly, helping her to her feet whether she wanted it or not.  Granted he had heard it from Chris first, but it was on the news now.  Tyson Morton's condition was deteriorating. 

          He moved Casey toward the door. 

          "I should stay," Casey said, one vain abortive attempt to remain steadfast.

          "You should go," Buck said as kindly as he could manage.  It wasn't going to help J.D. much to have Casey upset.  And her distress was written all over her face. 

          "It'll be all right," he told her calmly.  "J.D.'s going to be all right."

          He handed her her purse and the DVD case beside it.  "I'll talk to him," he reassured her.  "Don't you go getting all upset," he said, bending his head to look her in the eye.  "All that frowning will give you wrinkles."

          She didn't exactly smile, but her eyes warmed in appreciation of his effort.

          "It'll be all right," Buck repeated. 

          "Call your aunt and tell her you're on your way," he said.  She was moving into the hall now.  "Drive carefully," he ordered her.  "And ring the apartment phone so we know you're home safe."

          Buck shut the door behind her and turned back toward the living room.

          Chris would love to hear that J.D. heard the news from his television. 

          Buck swore. 

          Now was definitely not the time to tell him, "Remember that possible lawsuit your lawyer mentioned?"

          Damn Chris.  Buck hated it when the man could be so clearly wrong and still get to say "I told you so."

          He couldn’t think about that now, he admonished himself.  He'd better start thinking about what to say to J.D.

          "Kid," he started as he came back into the living room, but J.D. interrupted him.

          "I thought—" he stopped abruptly then tried again.  "I thought…" he stared down at his clasped hands and let out a long shaky breath.  "I just thought this whole thing had finally turned a corner.  You know?"

          He looked up at Buck with sorrow-filled eyes. 

          "I know," Buck said.  He said it quietly but with all the force he could infuse into his voice. 

          He took a deep breath himself, searching for a way to broach the topic.  "J.D.," he said finally, snaking his neck to look J.D. right in the eyes.  "You didn't do anything wrong," he said firmly.  "Just remember that."

          The hazel eyes flew unexpectedly wide.  "Didn't do anything wrong?"  The voice was suddenly strident.  "A fifteen year old kid is dying in the hospital because of me," he snapped loudly enough to make Buck flinch, but his tone held a bitter edge.  "Wouldn't you say that something went wrong?"

          J.D. stood up so suddenly that Buck flinched  backward to keep J.D.'s head from ramming his chin.  J.D.'s hands were clenched into fists.

          "I shot him, Buck," J.D. shouted, reminding Buck suddenly of a spooked colt.  "It doesn't matter if it was my fault.  I shot that boy.  Can't you understand that?"  It was the first time he had said the words out loud, the first time J.D. heard them ringing through the room in an echo of his own voice.  The truth he had known but tried so hard to resist loose on the air, come from his own lips.  It was true.  What he had said to Buck was true.  What did it matter whose fault it was? 

          Instinctively, Buck's palms came up.  If J.D. were a colt, he would have murmured some soothing words, nonsense syllables filled with phrases like "hush, boy" and "easy now."  But J.D. wasn't a colt.  He needed to hear words of reason, words that made some sense.

          But the words Buck had to say weren't likely to help matters much.

          "Okay," Buck said.  His voice softened, taking on a gentling tone, "Okay."

          J.D. stared at him.  Buck pictured the eyes of a horse, rolling slightly white, his head pulling backward against some unseen halter.

          Buck took a slow step forward, hands still raised.  "Okay," he said again and knew he'd better think of something a little more meaningful to say in short order.

          "You want to call Frank tonight?" he asked finally, because doing something proactive was a lot better than just sitting around and waiting for bad news to happen.

          J.D. flinched.  He stared at Buck. 

          For a moment Buck considered reminding him who Frank was.  "Frank Lawford?  Your attorney, remember?"

          But J.D. evidently didn't need a reminder.  His head had begun a slow disbelieving shake back and forth.

          The kid just heard, on the news no less, that Tyson Morton was dying from his wounds, from the damage caused by J.D.'s bullet in his body, and Buck's only words of wisdom and comfort were to call the attorney?  Buck thought maybe he ought to just kick himself in the ass and start over. 

          J.D. had finally found his voice.  "You think that's what this is about?  About whether or not I get sued?"

Buck opened his mouth to deny it, but J.D. wasn't finished yet. "A boy is dying Buck."

          Buck's mouth snapped closed again.

          The look J.D. gave him before he turned away burned straight through. 

          "Where are you going?" Buck called as J.D. headed for the front door.

          "Out," J.D. snarled back. 

          The door slammed hard behind him.

          Buck stood alone in the center of the living room, hands on hips, staring at the floor, contemplating just how badly the conversation had gone.  Damning Chris for being so completely wrong, and damning himself for going along with Chris's idiotic suggestion.

          He supposed he had a couple of choices here.  He could go after J.D., and try to…  Try to do what?  Fix it?  How the hell could he fix it?  Tyson Morton was dying.  There wasn't a damn thing he could do about that.  All he could manage to do was make up for his tactless practicality in suggesting J.D. call his lawyer.  And really that was only going to make himself feel better, not J.D.

          He swore and started dialing his phone and waited for the very last person he wanted to talk to right now to answer, which he did after the first ring, at close to 11 at night, like he had just been waiting for Buck to call to say he screwed up.

          "Larabee," came the clipped greeting.

          Buck unclenched his teeth long enough to growl out, "It's Buck," even though he knew that Chris already knew that, just like Chris knew this wasn't a social call apparently because he only asked, "What's happened?"

          Buck took a breath.  "You know the part where you told me to talk to J.D. about Tyson Morton?"

          He imagined he could hear Chris stiffen.  He winced.  "It didn't go well."

          This time he didn't imagine it when he heard Chris inhale, and he prepared himself for the incoming verbal firestorm.  But there was only one sharp expletive and then silence.

          "Chris?" Buck asked, knowing he was pressing his luck.  It was only a matter of seconds before Chris would want to know exactly what Buck had said and when, and therefore why J.D. heard it on the news before he heard it from his friends.  Never mind that suggesting J.D. call his lawyer was Chris's idea.  Of course, Buck was supposed to do it before J.D. found out from someone else—like the evening news—what was going on. 

          It was a crappy response to a crappy situation. 

          J.D. really did need to call that lawyer—and soon.  But he wasn't thinking that clearly.  Only Chris would ask a person to see reason through a world of hurt and guilt.  Hypocrite.

          Buck's teeth were clenched together again.

          Ever practical, Chris only asked, "Where is he now?"

          Buck grated his teeth together a little harder.  "I don't know," he answered.  "He just said he was going out."

          There was another silence. 

          "That's all he said," Buck said in answer to a question no one had asked.

          He waited impatiently through continued silence.

          "What?" Buck growled out testily.  "Was I supposed to tail him?"

          Buck was sure J.D. would have loved that.

          Chris's reply was equally testy.  "Shut up and let me think."

          Buck tapped his foot impatiently.  He was only half-sarcastic about setting up a tail.  If he had followed J.D. instead of calling Chris, then at least they'd have an idea where he was going.  Perhaps, it occurred to Buck, that he ought to hang up the phone and get in his truck and start looking.  J.D. hadn't been gone long.  People tended to be creatures of habit.  They had a pretty good idea of places J.D. was likely to go.  They could divide the area up into sectors and two or three of them in their personal vehicles could cover a lot of ground.  Or, they could track the GPS in his cell phone…

          He was on the verge of making some suggestions, since Chris didn't seem to have much to say, but Chris interrupted him to ask, "Are you at home?"

          "Yes," Buck said impatiently and tried again to make some suggestions but Chris wasn't listening. 

          "Stay put," Chris said tersely. 

          "What are you going to do?" Buck asked.

          "I'll see what I can find out," Chris answered.  "Just stay where you are in case J.D. calls or comes back first."

          "Chris," Buck said, inhaling, but he didn't know what he wanted to say.  _I screwed up_ came to mind, but Buck figured Chris already knew that.  _Telling him to call the lawyer was your stupid idea_ was also tempting.  But then he'd have to argue about his poor choice of timing.  _Why didn't you tell him yourself?  You sure as hell had the chance, you asshole_   was also not particularly helpful. 

          "Just stay put," Chris said tersely and hung up without so much as a goodbye. 

          The moment Buck disconnected, the perfect words finally came to him.  _You're in charge, goddammit.  Get up off your ass and do something._  

          That covered it nicely.

          But, of course, Chris had hung up long ago. 

          Buck glowered at his silent phone and tried to tell himself it was too early to start worrying. 

 

 

          J.D. sat astride his motorcycle in the parking lot staring at the glassed-in lobby.  Off to the sides of the building and across the street, video lights and flashes, voices and headlights gave away the position of the members of the press.  Security guards had been brought outside to keep the press away from the lobby doors and prevent them from obstructing the intermittent dribble of people going in and out of the series of automatic sliding doors.  They came in pairs and groups and singles.  He watched one small group with an enormous bouquet of helium balloons fight and jostle the bouquet in through the doors.  A family of four crossed the lobby from the left, the smallest one tugging and skipping and hopping the whole way, never once letting go of his father's left hand.  Two men came at a dead run from the other end of the parking lot, cutting off a group of what looked like nurses or orderlies or maybe even doctors.  There was a little old lady who could hardly walk even with a walker and a tall young woman who paced her so slowly through the doors and out into the night air, passed by a purposefully striding man with a briefcase on his way in.

          J.D. lost count of the number of people passing in and out, all of them seeming to know exactly where to go.  He wanted to go in there.  He needed to go in there.  He had made up his mind once already, but somehow he had stayed glued to his seat. 

          He knew what he had to do.  There was no time for being chicken shit.  Dread twisted up his guts as he stood up.  His palms were slick with sweat as he pulled off his helmet.  He eyed the enclaves given over to the press suspiciously and hoped the dark would give him plenty of cover.  He kept his hands in his pockets and his head down as he hurried across the sea of blacktop between his bike and the lobby doors.

          No one at all seemed to mark his approach.  Even the bulky security guards on either side of the door did not so much as nod in his direction, and he felt the tight knot in his stomach ease up a little at being anonymous again.

          He didn't suppose he would be allowed up to see Tyson Morton as he certainly wasn't family.  It occurred to him briefly that they would probably let him go if he showed his badge, but he threw that notion aside the instant it occurred to him.  He couldn't do that.  It wasn't right. 

          Besides, supposing they did let him see Tyson Morton, suppose they sent him right to his room or his cubicle or whatever, then what would he do?  What was he supposed to say to the boy?  Or his family?  How was he supposed to explain his being there?  He shuddered.  "I'm sorry" were the words that occurred to him, but "I'm sorry" seemed so very small and weak.

          First things first, he reminded himself.  First the lobby.  Then he could worry about where to go after that.

          The lobby was brightly lit, open and spacious.  It was probably even pretty—in the daylight anyway, or when people weren't arriving worried sick about people they loved.  He swallowed hard and looked around for an information desk or a wall directory or some clue of where to go.

          He turned to look to his left and startled to find someone blocking his path.  He jolted backward, his stance adjusting itself automatically, his hands clenched and rising before his brain could even get started.

          "J.D." a voice said quietly but firmly.

          J.D.'s eyes landed on the face at the same time as the man's hands landed on top of J.D.'s clenched fists.  Familiar green eyes held his as Chris gently pushed J.D.'s hands downward.  J.D. relaxed his stance. 

          Only Chris's eyes moved as he assessed the lobby around them.  J.D. flushed, hoping no one had noticed.

          Chris motioned with his head toward a corner of the lobby where a shuttered-up snack wagon sat among a small group of round café tables and colorful planters.  J.D. cast a glance toward the elevators even as he moved toward the tables.  It wasn't like he had a choice anyway.  Chris's hands were tucked away in his pockets, but he herded J.D. across the lobby nonetheless, nudging him with one shoulder to get him started and practically walking right on his heels to keep him going. 

          Buck had once told J.D. that Chris was part pit bull.  It occurred to J.D. as he quickened his pace that at least one other part must be border collie.

          The tables were small and had only a pair of chairs each.  Chris picked out a table close to the wall and pulled out a chair.  He looked at J.D. expectantly.  J.D. sat, knowing that if he didn't, Chris would apply some kind of special forces Vulcan death grip and make him sit.  And at the moment, J.D. felt too weak and too drained to fight with Chris Larabee.  He glanced regretfully over at the wagon as Chris slid into a chair across from him.  It was too bad the counter was closed.  J.D. thought he could really use something cold to drink. 

          Chris folded his hands on the metal table top and simply looked at him.

          J.D. shoved his hands back into his pockets and slouched down in his chair. 

          There was a long moment of silence.  J.D.'s throat felt raw as he finally asked.  "Is this the part where you tell me how stupid I am to come here?"  He tried to sound belligerent or angry or even resentful, anything to keep from sounding as pathetic and helpless as he felt.  But he couldn't even manage that.

          He looked up at Chris.  Head tilted slightly, Chris regarded J.D. thoughtfully, but there was no anger in the team leader's face.  Just, J.D. noted, an awful lot of regret. 

          He couldn't help the sigh that escaped him.  "I'm sorry," J.D. said.  And, he noted, sardonically, the words were still completely inadequate.

          "You shouldn't be here," Chris said at last, his voice still quiet.  J.D.'s hazel eyes flashed up at him, large, dark circles underneath that showed just how well sleep had evaded the boy lately.  There was a world of anguish swirling through that face.  How many and what kinds Chris didn't even want to begin to guess.

          "I have to be here," J.D. insisted.  His voice held a note of pleading that tugged hard on Chris's resolve.  And turned up the volume on that nagging voice in the back of Chris's head, the one that sounded strangely like Buck—and kept demanding that he do something to fix this mess right now and wouldn't listen to reason or logic or facts or even the truth that there was nothing that Chris could do to alter either past events or present realities.  There was simply nothing Chris could do.  But the voice in his head didn't care.  Neither did the anguish in J.D.'s face.

          Chris unfolded his hands and laid them flat against the cool metal of the table.

          "You can't be here," Chris said simply.

          J.D. held his gaze for a few moments more before the words seemed to sink in under the gravity of their own weight. 

          He understood.  Chris knew he did.  He could see it written right in the kid's eyes.  But so was that same burning need that brought him here.  Chris waited to see which would win out.  The need to see the inevitable ending through, to bear the full weight of the consequences of his actions, or the cold understanding of his position.  He waited for J.D. to choose either penance for his sins or self-preservation.

          Chris knew without a doubt which path he would have chosen for himself.  And he was pretty certain which path any of his men would have chosen, including J.D. if he had been left to his own devices.  And while he waited, Chris hoped to God that J.D. chose to use his head—because if he chose with his bleeding little heart then Chris was prepared to carry him out of this lobby bodily, out through a service corridor, and up into a reserved end of the parking garage where one of the security guys he knew had let him park his truck precisely because there was no press there.  J.D., of course, would probably never forgive him, but Chris was prepared to do it anyway. 

          He nearly sighed with relief to hear J.D.'s quiet exhaled "Yeah."  The reluctant "I guess." that followed earned J.D. a tilted half almost-smile just for proving that J.D. continued to be smarter by half than all of the rest of his teammates.

          Chris nodded.  He slid the keys to his truck across the table and told J.D. exactly how to find it.  J.D. frowned at him. 

          "You'll be less recognizable in my truck," Chris said.

          He watched J.D.'s fingers close around the keys.  "How will you get home?" J.D. asked.

          Chris did grin then as he plucked his phone from his pocket and waggled it at J.D. 

          J.D. could only guess which of his teammates had earned the privilege of being awakened in the middle of the night.  He thought he should probably feel guilty, but it was hard to when Chris's evil grin held so much obvious anticipation.  Unwillingly, J.D. felt himself smile back.

          J.D.'s grin was weak and half-hearted to be sure.  But it was there and it stoked that stubborn spark of faith in Chris's gut just one more time.  It guttered and blinked and had threatened to go out altogether more than once in the past decade or so, but with that little bitty half smile on J.D.'s face, tonight would not be the night.

          A nod of Chris's head told J.D. to get moving.  J.D. fingered the keys in his hand and did not so much as glance at the elevator doors on his way down the right-hand hallway as instructed.  Chris trusted him to leave now.  To continue right on to the parking lot and to get in Chris's Ram and drive home.  And no matter what, J.D. would not, could not bring himself to break that trust.

          Chris watched J.D. go and fingered his phone.  He was ninety percent certain that J.D. would go, that he would get in the truck and go home now.  For the other ten percent, Chris had Matt Sweers, who was on security tonight and had agreed to phone him as soon as J.D. drove out of the parking garage in Chris's truck.  Of course, there was no guarantee that J.D. would go home and not just drive aimlessly around the city all night, in which case Buck, who had better still be staying put and waiting for J.D., would be ready to rip Chris's head off in a perfectly justified, sleep-deprived rage come morning.  But Chris would deal with that later.  Right now, he just had to know that J.D. had left the hospital.

          He sat perfectly still in his café chair for ten minutes until Matt called with confirmation.  Then he stared at the elevator doors and wished he were anywhere near as smart as J.D. 

 

 

          Buck nearly sagged with relief when J.D. came through the front doors, and he refrained from demanding to know just where J.D. had been, reminding himself that wasn't important.

          It was just as well, since J.D. apparently didn't feel much like talking anyway.  He acknowledged Buck as he passed the living room with an unhappy nod of his head and a half-hearted wave of one hand and continued on to his first floor bedroom still looking completely miserable.

          At least he was home, Buck reminded himself.

          He gave the kid a few minutes of space, spending the time watching a television show, the name and basic plot of which he couldn't even recall, background noise to his distracted waiting.  At the next commercial break, he made his way to J.D.'s room and knocked on the closed door.

          A muffled "What?" was his reward.

          "You need anything?" Buck asked through the door.

          J.D. stared straight up at his darkened ceiling.  Yeah, he thought.  He needed something.  Trouble was he couldn't think of a single thing that would actually help. 

          He turned his head toward the closed door, three quarters outlined by the light in the hallway beyond and sighed.  He supposed it helped some just to know that Buck was standing right outside that door, like the man had stood by him from the minute this all started, and to know that if he asked, Buck would find him whatever it was he asked for.  Come hell or high water, whatever it was, Buck would get it for him.  But even Buck couldn't fetch him a miracle.

          He sighed.  "No thanks," he said.  "I'm just gonna go to sleep."

          "All right," Buck agreed.  And for a second J.D. thought he had gone, until the voice floated through the door one more time.  "You change your mind, you let me know."  There was something fierce in the tone that put a lump in J.D.'s throat.  "Whatever you need.  You let me know."

          He waited for J.D.'s answering agreement.  Then Buck did move away, the shadow of his feet moving along the bottom of the door.  The television droned on in the living room.

          J.D. turned his face back toward the ceiling and reached back into his memory for a prayer, but he didn't know any that seemed quite appropriate, so he began simply, shuddering out a whispered plea.  "Dear God…"  And in the darkness he waited and hoped that God still remembered him.

          Buck moved off into the relative quiet of the kitchen to call Nettie Wells and put her mind at rest.  She would let Casey know when she woke up.  Then Buck called his teammates to tell them that J.D. was home again, safe and sound and that no one needed to come over, and that they could stop calling now and get some sleep, which he had to repeat several times in the case of some of his more stubborn comrades.  At least he told four of them that.  Of the five other members of Team Seven, Chris was the only one who didn't answer his phone. 

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

          It should have been harder to find the room, Chris reflected as he made his way down a long white corridor.  It should have been harder to gain access to this floor and to this hallway.  In fact, there was a lot that should have been done to safeguard this kid's privacy, he thought.  Somehow it wasn't right that a whole city should know a fifteen year old was slowly dying in a hospital in their midst. 

          Then again, he considered, maybe a whole city should know each and every time a child lost the fight to live.  Maybe it was that important.

          A man with a briefcase left a room two doors ahead on the left and passed Chris so closely they nearly brushed shoulders.  Chris spared a glance at the man's back as he headed back the way Chris had come.

          Then he was outside Tyson Morton's room.

          A man and a woman sat beside the boy's bed. 

          The man's collar proclaimed him a priest or a minister of some kind.  The name tag around his neck declared him more than likely a hospital chaplain. 

          The woman Chris would have recognized from the news.  Her image had been no less prominent in the papers and on television than her son's and those of his friends.  A face in the news would not have been enough to bring him here, would not have been enough to illicit much more than a pang of sympathy for what she was suffering, for what she was about to suffer, maybe a kind thought sent into the universe on her behalf but no more than that. 

          But then he met her in the cemetery, the small woman who stood before him, just behind Adam's own headstone, her face lit with rage and pain, lined with sleeplessness and determination.  He could see in her face the fate that was rushing down on her.  His own past an omen of her future. 

          And, as certain as a beacon, the impending shadow just over her shoulder and rushing down on her drew him here.

          She sat with her small hands folded into the man's large ones.  The cross that hung from the man's neck swung freely between their clasped hands and bowed heads.  Their eyes were closed, but the man's lips moved, his voice a quiet drone against the counterpoint of the machinery keeping Tyson Morton alive.  Chris lowered his eyes to the floor.

          He had no more right to be here than J.D. did.  And it was just as stupid.  His smarter angels told him there was still time for him to move on down the hall and no one would be any wiser.  He let the critical moment pass.

          This wasn't about smart or right. 

          It was just something he had to do.

          He didn't know how long he stood in the hallway watching the monitors in the room and the boy's still face, and listening to the man's voice.  The baritone "Amen" came to him clearly, echoed immediately by the woman.  The chaplain stood and laid a hand across the boy's forehead.  His lips moved through another prayer.

          The woman sat with her back to the door, and Chris could see the thin line of the woman's shoulders shaking.  She clutched a white tissue in one hand.

          She stood as the chaplain turned back to her.  He took her hands once more, spoke more words Chris couldn't hear.  Then he left her at her dying child's bedside and entered the hallway.

          The chaplain startled to see Chris there, a black shadow that detached itself from the wall and became a man. 

          The brown eyes that lit on Chris were deeply lined and kind.

          The hand that grasped Chris's was enormous and very warm and indicated without words that Chris should come along.  He peeled himself away from his post and walked beside the man.

          "Michael Landau," the man introduced himself after they had gone a few steps.  "Interfaith Chaplain."

          "Chris Larabee," Chris answered automatically, but the words "Denver ATF" stuck hard in his throat.

          They stopped several feet along the hall and the chaplain turned to face Chris.

          "Are you family?" he asked.

          "No," Chris answered, strangely gratified that someone else was asking him to state his business here.  Still he was not deterred.

          The minister smiled kindly.  "Are you here for the family then?"

          "It's hard to explain," Chris replied.

          The minister's eyes narrowed thoughtfully, sizing Chris up like he was a puzzle.

          "Is there anyone else?" Chris asked awkwardly, feeling out of step even with himself.  It wasn't quite what he wanted to ask, so he cleared his throat and tried again.  The simple truth.  "I wanted to make sure she wasn't alone."

          The chaplain turned his gaze back to the door he had just left.  "Well," he said after a moment.  "There was a Mr. D'Aprix from the Community Action League."

          Chris grimaced.

          The chaplain found something amusing in Chris's grimace and smiled faintly, but he didn't share his thoughts.

          "There was a lawyer," Chaplain Landau added. 

          Chris sighed.

          Landau sized up the man in front of him.  There was a definite air of authority there.  Probably military.  Probably law enforcement.  Probably the last possible person he should leave unescorted in this hallway.  But he believed the awkward hitch in the man's voice when he asked whether Shana Morton was alone tonight, more than he believed in his own experience.  After all these years, he was slowly learning not to question it when God sent the wrong people to the wrong places to do the work He had in mind. 

          "She could use a friend," the chaplain said.

          Something passed quickly across the man's face, but it was gone, shuttered up in the blink of an eye.  Still, the man's green eyes held his own, and he nodded gravely. 

          The chaplain wrapped both hands around Chris's this time.  "I have to attend to some others tonight," he said regretfully.  "But I'll be back as soon as I can."

          "I'll be here," the blond man replied.  And Landau was certain that whether he came back in ten minutes or four hours, this Chris Larabee would still be here.

          He smiled slightly watching the man walk back up the hallway.  Then he hurried on to the elevators and the next soul in need of him tonight. 

          Chris paused in the doorway to Tyson Morton's room long enough to get his bearings, noting the photographs taped to the wall above the boy's bed, pausing on the machines, and letting his eyes fall onto Shana Morton's back, where she sat in an uncomfortable plastic chair, her body canted forward across her son's.  The stiff hunch of her shoulders spoke eloquently of her utter concentration.  Quiet words that Chris couldn't quite hear spilled from her lips, the stream breaking once or twice as her voice cracked or she drew a shuddering breath.  She held one of the boy's hands in both her own and even from the doorway Chris could see the strength in her grip. 

          He knocked once.  She did not turn.  Too accustomed to doctors and nurses coming and going, maybe.  Add to that the chaplain and, as the chaplain said, Cyril D'Aprix and the lawyer.  Chris was only the latest in a stream of people that trickled intermittently in and out of the room. 

          He cleared his throat. 

          She looked unhappy to be interrupted, but she stared at him puzzled, and he could read in her face that she was trying to place his face among the many she had seen in the last several days. 

          He stopped just inside the doorway.

          Her eyes narrowed.  "I remember you," she said.  "From the cemetery," she added, her voice holding a hard edge. 

          He couldn't blame her really.  His own reactions had been far more hostile to those who intruded on his private grief.  And here he was witnessing hers when he had no right and no business being here at all.

          He took another step forward.

          He wasn't really sure what he should say.  A voice in the back of his head suggested excusing himself and getting long gone.  He ignored it as he searched for a way to explain his presence.  Dark brown eyes assessed him warily, sweeping across his face like a searchlight.  He wished he had Josiah's eloquence or maybe Buck's compassion.  Or Nathan's good sense.  But he didn't have any of that.  And tact and subtlety were not numbered among his greatest strengths in the best of times.  All he had was the truth. 

          "The chaplain said you could probably use a friend right now," Chris said.

          Her face got a fraction stonier and her eyes grew a fraction warier.  Her grasp tightened on her child's limp hand. 

          "Is that what you are?  A friend?" she asked, letting acid seep into her tone for this strange man, a representative of the agency who took her only child, who came uninvited into this room to witness her tragedy, to see her grief. 

          "No," Chris answered honestly.

          She watched his eyes sweep away from her to focus on the photos she had pinned above Tyson's bed, pictures of Tyson and herself.  One of both boys together but mostly just the two of them.  His gaze lingered on the photos for a few moments before returning to focus on her face.

          "Not a friend," he said.  "Just someone who knows."

          She was tempted to ask him just what it was that he thought he knew, just like she had asked Cyril D'Aprix just how he could know what she was going through.  Just like she had told the man who called himself her lawyer he could not possibly understand how she felt to be a single mother standing at the bedside of her only child listening to doctors tell her simply how much time was left.  It would have been easy to use the sharp end of her tongue to put this stranger, this blond, white government agent in his place, to drive him and his unwanted sympathy from the room, even to call for a nurse and have him bodily removed.  But she remembered him from the cemetery, two white marble headstones at his feet, one for a wife and a mother and one for a child.  She remembered him standing tall and pale in the dying sunlight with Cyril D'Aprix barking in his ear, but it was her that he turned to when he excused himself, leaving the white marble graves behind.  So she did not ask him what he knew about it.  She was afraid to hear the answer.

          She turned away from him and back to her child.

          Chris stayed standing right where he was, just inside the doorway, holding the line in a peculiar uncomfortable limbo, uninvited to come further in and unwilling to leave.  It hadn't escaped his notice that except for one, the set of five photos on the wall showed the same two people and only the same two people over and over again:  Tyson Morton and his mother.

          He remained standing, silent, behind her at her son's doorway.  A presence at the edge of Shana's mind.  He came no closer and made no move to leave.  He did not make small talk and from the brief glance she cast at him, neither did he stare at her.  He just stayed there, silent and respectful, like the men she remembered at her father's funeral.  Maybe it was because he had nothing to say, no wise words to offer, no useless words of sympathy or even of hope, no worn out worthless words of advice or even comfort.  He did not tell her truths or even lies.  He simply stood there in the doorway like some kind of sentinel, his black attire stark against the white walls and his hands and hair and face stark against his black attire. 

          She turned to him, exasperated.  She wanted to tell him to leave now.  To go before she asked someone to throw him out.

          But her eyes landed squarely on his face.  And it was exactly the knowing in his expression, reading what was right there for her to see, understanding now exactly what it was he knew and seeing the truth of it reflected, that was her undoing.

          The sob broke out suddenly from somewhere deep inside, sucking the air from her lungs so that she could not breathe, one hand now clasped over her own mouth as if to put it back, to shove it back down, to smother it and bury it again. 

          But right behind it came the tears, assaulting the walls she had so carefully guarded.  Her defenses crumbled. 

          She did not even see him step into her space.  She only knew that when she folded forward, where she should have bent in half and broken like a rag doll, she met something solid instead, hard arms that kept her from sliding out of her chair and bound her like iron, offering no words, no sound at all, offering nothing at all but strength.

          Eventually, rational thought returned to her.  Eventually she could breathe again.  Eventually the tears dried into tight scratchy tracks down her face.  Eventually she felt like her body could hold her up again.  A hand tightened on her shoulder and she realized where she was.

          She swiped the back of one hand across her eyes and stiff-armed him away from her with the other one.  She expected resistance and got none.  He had sat down beside her on another chair at some point, and he slid the chair backward away from her now, putting space between them. 

          Her pride demanded that she make some kind of excuse for her weakness, contrive some explanation other than the agony under her heart, but his face told her he didn't expect one, that he wouldn't have bought it anyway even if she did. 

          He looked at her once from the corner of his eye, pushed his chair even further back until he was sitting behind her, somewhere over her right shoulder, out of sight as completely as if he had disappeared and yet solid as a wall at her back.

          She blew her nose and pushed hair from her face.  Then she pulled her chair even closer to Tyson's bed.  She held his left hand secure in her own, and her right hand stroked his beautiful dark hair and the smooth cheek that had grown so thin.  It hurt just to talk over the ache in her throat and the cramp in her chest where her heart used to be.  But she did, her voice hardly more than a whisper, because there were things he needed to know, things he needed to hear, things he needed to carry with him when he left her.

          Behind her, Chris made a willful effort not to listen or to watch, tuning out his ears and fixing his eyes on the floor.  It was more painful than he had even imagined to witness another's pain and to remember his own.  But he was here now.  And he was going to see it through.

          It would not be much longer.

 

 

          Buck was awakened by the muffled ringing of his cell phone from somewhere near his left hip.  He groaned and groped through a twisted mound of sheets and blanket until his hand settled around the small hard case.  He retrieved it and croaked out a greeting.

          Vin.

          He blinked at his alarm clock then scrubbed a hand back through his hair and down his face as he pushed himself up to a sitting position.

          "Uh huh," he managed, untangling his feet from the sheets and swinging them down to the floor.

          Then he swore softly. 

          "Thanks for letting me know," Buck said, more awake now. 

          "No, I'll tell him," Buck said, picking a tee shirt up off his floor and pulling it over his head, phone and all. 

          He swore again as he hung up.

          No one could say he didn't learn from his mistakes.  This time he went straight down to J.D.'s room.  This time he wouldn't hear the bad news from some reporter on television. 

          There was no answer to his first few polite knocks, so he pounded on the door a few times until he heard a muffled groan.

          "Come in," J.D.'s voice called, cracked with sleep.

          Buck pushed open the door.

          J.D. blinked up at his housemate silhouetted in the doorway.  He was sure he had said to come in, but Buck stayed in the doorway, leaning on the frame.  Way too silent.  And far too polite. 

          J.D. sat up and squinted toward the shadowed form, trying and failing to see Buck's expression in the backlight from the hall.

          "What's happened?" he brought himself to ask, although he was certain he already knew.

          Buck didn't really know an easy way to say it, so he just did.  "Tyson Morton's gone," he said.  "Passed away early this morning."

          J.D. closed his eyes at the confirmation.  He had known it even when he had gone to bed last night.  He had known with dreadful finality that the third and final boy, the one without a gun, would not live through another day. 

          He could still feel Buck's eyes upon him, so he nodded both his thanks and his understanding. 

          But Buck didn't leave.  He stayed right where he was, planted in the doorway. Not that J.D. was surprised by that either.  Buck was like that.  Stubborn as hell, digging his heels in where he was not invited, getting all protective when he was not needed, and invading J.D.'s space when he was not wanted.  It could be annoying beyond belief.  But right now, he was grateful to have Buck Wilmington, experienced agent, card-carrying idiot, tough guy, and big brother in his corner and to know that whatever happened this day, Buck would be there to watch his back. 

          "You want me to call you in?" Buck asked.  Chris had been suggesting awful hard that J.D. ought to take time away and that Buck ought to convince him to do it.  Not that Buck thought Chris was exactly wrong about that, but J.D. was dead set against the idea.  Maybe it wasn't the best decision, J.D. could have made, but Buck figured that lately, the kid needed people not to second-guess his decisions more than he needed time off.

          That didn't keep Buck from hoping, though, that this time J.D. would agree,  but the young agent shook his sleep-rumpled head and rubbed at his eyes.

          "I'll be right out," J.D. said. 

          Clearly, the kid was getting up and he was going to work.  That was that.  Buck moved out of the doorway and headed toward the kitchen to find some breakfast.

          He scowled to hear the television go on a few moments later.  The morning news.  Channels changed.  Same story everywhere. 

          Buck peeked out of the kitchen to see J.D. standing in the middle of the living room floor, remote in one dangling hand, watching intently as reporters stood in front of the hospital and reported the news of Tyson Morton's death. 

          "Just a few days shy of his fifteenth birthday," said a newscaster. 

          "You want breakfast?" Buck interrupted loudly.

          J.D. shook his head.  "No thanks."

          Buck came into the living room, and then, suddenly, all six feet and four solid inches of the man stood between J.D. and the television, blocking his view entirely.  J.D. almost smiled at that.  People seldom accused Buck of being subtle.

          The bigger man scrunched down a bit to look J.D. in the eyes. 

          "No one would blame you if you stayed home today," he said solemnly.

          J.D. was grateful for the advice—even if he already knew that.

          He was even more grateful when, in the next breath, Buck offered to take a personal day, too.  They could drive out of town somewhere, go up into the mountains, take their horses out for exercise, disappear for a while, out of sight, out of earshot, out of cell phone range—which was a hell of a thing to offer knowing how Chris Larabee felt about their cell phones being turned on and available.

          J.D. looked up into serious blue eyes and hoped his poker face was good enough.  "I'm okay," he said. 

          Buck looked at him doubtfully. 

          "I want to go in," J.D. insisted.  His eyes skittered away from Buck's face.  "I think I need to be with my friends."

          Buck breathed out a resigned sigh.  But his tone was something approaching normal as he clapped J.D. on the shoulder.  "Best get ready then.  Your driver's outta here in fifteen minutes."

          For that, J.D. gave Buck the gift of a wan smile.

          But it was enough to send Buck upstairs and give J.D. time to think about what he had to do.

 

 

          Buck exited the glass doors ahead of J.D., giving the parking lot a systematic sweep born of ingrained instinct and well-honed experience.  The parking lot of their townhouse complex was blessedly free of reporters, which was a damn good reason to be leaving so early. 

          Buck halted in mid step when he saw the Ram, stopping so suddenly that J.D., right behind him, nearly plowed right into him.  He squinted, certain now that he was correct.  That was Chris's truck.

          It didn't take J.D. but a moment to recover and see what had brought Buck up short without so much as a warning.

          "Chris gave me the truck to drive home in," J.D. said before Buck could even ask.

          Buck turned to look at him. 

          "Said he'd call one of the guys for a ride," J.D. said.  He had assumed it was going to be Buck, but there were four other people on the team after all.  He shrugged.

          Buck frowned slightly.

          And J.D. recalled that Chris hadn't exactly said that so much as waggled his cell phone in J.D.'s direction.  But wasn't it the same thing when you're talking about a guy who never said three words where one good glare or a hand gesture would do?

          J.D. revealed the Ram keys in his hand.  "Thought I'd drive it in for him this morning.  Save him from having to come over and pick it up."

          Buck gave a sort of noncommittal grunt and headed over to his little red truck.

          Then the two of them drove their two-truck convoy to the federal building and its accompanying garage.

          Luck was with them and they made it through the glass doors ahead of the first reporters to come across the parking lot when they recognized J.D.

          It was early yet, and they were the first two to arrive in Team Seven's bullpen.  Buck made coffee as a self-defense mechanism.  Tanner would be arriving soon, and if Buck didn't get there first, Vin would gladly make his special brew.  They joked that it was strong enough to melt the spoons, but Buck had drunk so much of the stuff this week, he was pretty sure the acid was starting to eat right through his stomach lining.

          He made J.D.'s cup with extra milk and brought it out to where the kid was powering up his computer and rifling through the paltry stack of papers in his inbox at the same time.

          Just for Vin, Buck made a big show of cracking his knuckles and looking extra hard at work when the sharpshooter finally arrived a full five minutes later than his usual forty-five minutes early.

          Vin smirked at Buck's little farce but his tone was anything but jovial as he squeezed J.D.'s shoulder and said, "How you doin', kid?"

          J.D.'s shoulder twitched up in a little shrug.  "Hard to say," he answered finally.

          "Yeah," Vin agreed solemnly.  He came out of the tiny kitchenette with two cups of coffee, both for himself.

          Buck quirked an eyebrow at him. 

          "What?" Vin griped.  "With coffee this weak, it takes twice as much to wake up."

          Buck snorted.

          Nathan and Ezra arrived within minutes of each other.  Neither man said much and Buck noticed that Ezra's usual Starbuck's had grown into the largest size available, and even Nathan had his mug in his hand before he turned on his computer.

          Buck wondered how the hell they were all going to get themselves unaddicted once this was all over. 

          By eight forty-five, Josiah and Chris were still conspicuously absent.  By impressive powers of deduction, Buck determined that Josiah must have drawn the "Bring Larabee into work" straw.   Buck reminded himself at two minutes to nine that Josiah's ancient Suburban wasn't the most reliable vehicle around.  It was entirely possible they were having car trouble.

          But he couldn't think of any reason one of them wouldn't have called in.

          He cast a covert glance over at J.D. to see how the kid was doing.  Head bent over file folders and fingers flying over the keys without even looking, the young agent was doing an impressive job of keeping it all together.  But still Buck could clearly see the fraying around the edges of his control. 

          Buck frowned at the clock.  Chris had better get his ass in the door and soon.

 

 

          Josiah Sanchez sat with his hands in his pockets and his legs stretched out in front of him, taking the opportunity to practice being in the present moment. 

          The big clock opposite the glass doors read fifteen minutes after nine o' clock.  Sunlight illumined the glass lobby, sparkling where the custodian had just dragged his wet squeegee down the floor-to-ceiling panes.

          The canvas sides of the snackwagon snapped like sails on a ship as a young woman rolled them up and out of the way.  The smell of freshly brewing coffee wafted to Josiah a few moments later and he watched the woman setting out stirrers and creamers, sugar and sweeteners.  She filled a napkin dispenser and stacked fat muffins up into a pyramid on the counter. 

          The aroma of coffee brewing tempted Josiah's nose and he began to consider whether he couldn't use a second cup already this morning. 

          He fingered the phone in his pocket.  Funny how no one had called yet to find out just where the hell he was, since he knew for a fact that Chris hadn't called either of them in.  Josiah was sure it was only a matter of minutes now. 

          He just wasn't sure what he was going to say.

          A brown older model sedan with a logo on its side proclaiming it to be a taxi rolled to a halt at the curb.  Josiah could just barely see the head of the passenger sliding along the bench seat in the back.  The driver hurried around the car to open the door.  Sanchez could see the passenger now, an older woman.  She had trouble getting to her feet and the taxi driver helped her. 

          She stood on the entrance ramp rummaging in her purse, while the driver pulled a small rolling suitcase out of the trunk.  She handed him some folded bills and struggled with the suitcase the few feet to the automatic doors.

          Josiah watched her and grimaced.

          It was clear enough to him that she would have had trouble walking without the interference of the suitcase she dragged along behind her, but not one of the people hurrying, strolling, ambling, or loitering in the lobby stopped or offered to help her. 

          So Josiah finally got to his feet and made his way across the vast glassed-in space to catch up with her at an information desk.

          He got there in time to hear her say "Morton."

          And he thought unkind words toward uncaring fate that would let an elderly woman hear the news this way.

          He dashed off a quick message to Chris's voice mail and stepped up to the desk.

          "Ma'am," Josiah interrupted, addressing the white-haired woman before the desk assistant, still squinting at her computer monitor, could speak again.

          The woman looked at him confused, but she let him lead her a few steps away from the desk.

          "Ma'am," he said carefully, "If you wait here a moment, Mrs. Morton will be down for you."

          She seemed undecided for just a moment, then she released her grip on the suitcase.

          Josiah offered her his arm, took the suitcase in his other hand and helped her to a nearby bench.

          She sat down heavily, as heavily as her thin frame could allow, and Josiah was reminded suddenly of an old, frail crow, perching on a wire.

          "My grandson," she said to him.  Then she pulled a damp used tissue from her pocket and dabbed at eyes that Josiah could now see were shot through with red.  Her eyes were red.  Her nose was red.  And she apologized to cover her indignity.

          "Yes, ma'am," Josiah answered. 

          What was he to say?  Truth was, he shouldn't even know as much as he did. 

          "I been on buses for two days," she said at length.  Then her face crinkled up into deep creases and he had to bend his head to hear her choked out, "I hoped to get here in time."

          His sigh was long and deep.  Screw morning practice, he thought bitterly, wanting this present moment done and over.  He could practice being mindfully present in a better moment.

          The woman dabbed at her eyes some more while Josiah wondered what comfort he could offer that would be appropriate to this elderly woman who had missed her chance to say goodbye to her grandson by the accident of mere hours and the vagaries of the bus company's schedules.  He was more than grateful when the elevators opened and a familiar figure exited into the lobby. 

          Larabee escorted Shana Morton across the lobby with great deference, not coming close enough to touch her, but not moving out of range either and Josiah was reminded of the way a parent follows a child learning to ride a bicycle. 

          The two women saw each other at the same time.  The younger of the two crossed the rest of the lobby in long, rapid steps arriving at the bench on her knees.  Sweater-clad arms came up to wrap around her head and shoulders even before any greeting could be exchanged.  The two women rocked each other silently.

          Josiah looked over at Chris finally, and all his gratitude died at the look on Chris's face.

          Normally animated, the green eyes looked exhausted and hollow.  His face was drawn, the shadow of beard making his cheeks seem sunken.  Then Chris caught Josiah looking and the steel doors slammed shut on his expression until he regarded Josiah with a face that was utterly blank.

          A cold hard rock splashed down into the pit of Josiah's stomach.  And he knew this present moment wasn't going to be so great either.  He turned and walked toward the exit doors.

          Chris said not a word.  He followed Josiah to the exit in silence so complete that Josiah could clearly hear the quiet sobbing of the women receding into nothing behind them.

          The rock in Josiah's stomach seemed set to stay.  It was joined moments later by a slow boil at the sight of the neat little paper waving insolently at him from his windshield. 

          He snatched the ticket from underneath the windshield wiper and threw it disgustedly onto the dashboard as he got into the driver's seat.

          Josiah didn't bother to give voice to the question of whether this day could get any worse.  Why tempt fate?  He knew for a fact.  It could.

          In the passenger seat, Chris stared blankly out the windshield.  If he noticed the ticket, or much of anything else, he gave no indication.  He was clearly in no state of mind to commiserate over the parking ticket Josiah had just earned—even if he got it coming to fetch Chris.  So Josiah didn't bring that up either. 

          Josiah ordered a large, black coffee at a drive-through on the way to the federal building.  Chris did not speak or grunt or even twitch when Josiah asked him if he wanted anything.  So Josiah bought two large black coffees and put one of them in the cup holder at Chris's elbow.  He was not surprised when Chris didn't drink it. 

          He called Nathan to tell him they were on their way and skillfully avoided both the question "Where have you been?" and "Are you both okay?"

          He was sufficiently vague about how long it was going to take them to get there.  Which gave him time to drive around and around, up and down aimless city blocks and wonder whether it was possible that Chris had gone completely catatonic.

          He finally parked his Suburban in a small parking lot adjacent to a sub shop that wasn't open.  He turned off the engine and sipped his coffee until finally, and slowly, Chris Larabee turned a face toward him that was as expressionless and unreadable as a mask of stone.

          Chris regarded him unblinking until Josiah sighed and turned on the engine.

          Then he drove them both to work.

 

 

          According to Buck's computer, his cell phone, and his watch, it was well after ten o'clock when Chris finally came through the bullpen doorway, Josiah right behind him.  Five pairs of eyes looked up to see them enter.  And five pairs of eyes followed as Chris turned away from them and went left into his office, his black-clad back disappearing into the dark space past the door.

          It was well within Buck's professional right to go in there after Larabee and take him to task.  After all, he was the second in command.  It was part of his job to be informed when his team leader was going to be absent or unavailable.  Added to which, he'd been left completely in the dark and forced to guess what the hell Chris was doing, since he hadn't been able to raise him on his cell phone since last night, which was a clear act of hypocrisy from a man who demanded that everyone else on the team keep their phones on and be accessible day or night.  Not to mention that he'd spent the last two hours or so fending off questions about "Where are Chris and Josiah?", discouraging people from calling and finding out the man's cell phone had either been turned off or totally disregarded for the last eleven hours, and staving off any suggestion of forming a search party.  It wasn't like the team, and J.D. especially, didn't have enough eating at them right now.

          Then Buck noticed Josiah making his way to his own desk, holding a paper take-out coffee cup in each hand, both of which he set down on his own desk.  Josiah threw his jacket over the back of the chair and started up his computer, all the while ignoring Nathan's frown.  Another addict in the making, Buck noted.

          He let his gaze slide across J.D.'s tense form bent over his desk and trying not to look like he was wound up tighter than a bow string, over to Vin who was staring thoughtfully at Chris's doorway.  Ezra looked at Buck like he expected him to say something.  To say anything.  And so help him, if he made a crack about it being okay for Chris to come sliding in unforgivably late without so much as a "beg your pardon", but not okay for Ezra.  So Buck glowered at him just to keep him quiet.

          It wasn't like Buck had that chance to speak to Chris anyway.  Chris had very pointedly, very purposely not looked at Buck or Vin or anyone else in the room.  And Buck knew Chris too well and too long not to recognize that there was something very wrong about that.

          He was just considering what, if anything, he ought to do about it when J.D. cleared his throat and placed the Ram keys on top of his desk.  He made to rise, but Josiah's calm, "You might want to wait a minute on that, son," stopped him in mid-motion. 

          At that moment, Chris came out of his office and went straight out the bullpen door again, eyes straight ahead, without stopping or speaking.  It was only an instant, but it was enough to give Buck—whose desk was right across from the Team Leader's office door—a good full look at Larabee's face.  The face full of stubble told Buck the man hadn't shaved.  The wrinkled tee-shirt and faded jeans were completely out of place in the office, and Buck recognized the wad of clothes Chris had tucked under his arm as the emergency stash he kept in the drawer of his filing cabinet.  Wherever he had been, he had been there all night. 

          That didn't worry Buck overmuch.  Not nearly as much as the empty look on his friend's face when he looked right through all of them and went out the door. 

          From the corner of his eye, Buck could see Vin mirroring his own posture, eyes fixed on the doorway.  He had the sudden thought that he could leave it to Vin to sort out whatever was eating at Chris.  Vin would take care of it.  Buck, after all, could only rescue one teammate at a time.  And right now J.D. had both first dibs and his full attention.  A sharp twinge of shame accompanied the thought.

          Buck turned uneasily back to his desk.  From the corner of his eye, he watched as J.D., suspended halfway between sitting and standing finally decided to lower himself back into his desk chair.  Buck studiously ignored both Nathan and Ezra, who gave up looking expectantly at him to exchange a series of looks that Buck didn't even care to decipher.  Only Josiah kept on quietly studying him, and Buck chose to ignore him outright, opting instead to shoot telepathic waves at Vin's head, hoping the sniper would get the hint and go talk to Chris. 

 

 

          When Chris did return, showered, shaved, and dressed more appropriately for work, it did little to relieve Buck's foreboding.  The man was holed up in his office, but at least the door was open, and he was talking.  He had spoken exactly three words to the team.  Granted they were all to Ezra and consisted entirely of "My office," and "No", after which Ezra exited the office with a paper in his hand, looking both miffed and dumbfounded, to be so summarily dismissed as Chris, having spoken, moved on with his work as if Ezra weren't even still standing there.

          Buck was pretty sure that whatever Ezra was muttering under his breath wouldn't have been inappropriate in polite society, but he couldn't be certain because it seemed to be in French. 

          On another day Buck might have enjoyed watching Ezra's little show of indignation, but watching Chris go through the motions was like watching a very good impersonator.  And he didn't much like the act.  The guy sure looked like Chris.  He dressed like Chris and he knew the right computer passwords.  And he sure knew enough not to give the game away by talking too much, but Buck knew Chris.  And this guy's tone was a hair too flat and his focus was off.  The way he held his shoulders was too stiff.  And from what little Buck could see, his face was too blank.   

          Buck cast another covert glance at Vin, who, Buck knew, had been regarding Chris intermittently from the corner of his eye all morning.  But he had made no move to approach the team leader's office.  Buck preferred to assume that the cagey ex-Ranger was just looking for the tactically advantageous moment. 

          It had better be soon, he muttered through his gritted teeth.  He didn't need psychic powers to feel the growing discomfort from the team, especially from J.D., who was getting antsier by the hour.  And something about that niggled at Buck's suspicions.

          J.D. waited until twelve thirty.  He waited while the clock moved with a sluggishness that belied the laws of physics, minutes ticking by with painful slowness, as the lump in his stomach slowly swelled bigger and bigger until it started to squeeze up into his throat, too.

          His voice was in danger of croaking when he answered Buck's question about what he wanted for lunch.  No one asked him to leave the building, he noted.  The parking garage was again a feeding frenzy of reporters circling and circling, waiting for a kill. 

          Truth was, J.D. didn't really care about lunch.  He was sorry for the deception, but he didn't plan to be here when lunch was over.

          As it was, his plan worked out perfectly.  Ironic that this moment would be the one time in weeks that events went his way.  Maybe it really was fate. 

          Chris's distant silence had weighed so heavily on the bullpen that all those who could escape decided by instinct and silent agreement to get out while they could.  They all looked at him apologetically, knowing that J.D. had no such chance to flee with the reporters out there.  Buck looked suitably guilty and promised to be right back.  It occurred to J.D. that on any other day he might have resented being left behind or at least felt lonely.  But not today because he realized that Chris probably wasn't going anywhere.  His suspicions were confirmed when Vin lingered a second in the team leader's doorway and Chris didn't even lift his eyes from the computer in front of him.  Vin shook his head as he left without a word.  Then it was just Chris and J.D.

          Even now he was hesitant to go in there.  Josiah had warned him off earlier.  Even Buck had whispered a terse "leave it alone," meaning "stay away from him."  He gave Buck a look that answered "Do I look stupid?"

          But now was his best chance and he fought hard not to balk at going in there to talk to Chris, who was strangely silent even for Chris Larabee.  He'd seen Chris angry silent, tired silent, and even contented silent, but J.D. paid enough attention to know that this was different.  More like absence really than just silence.  Like what he was seeing was some kind of holographic recording on display while Chris stepped out for a while. 

          He chided himself for waffling and took a steadying breath.

          He had to do this before he could change his mind or lose his nerve.  There were other ways, to be sure, ways that were less face to face.  But even if he was too cowardly to face Buck, J.D.'s conscience demanded that he face Chris, his boss, his leader, and a man he looked up to more than he could ever admit.  Pride and dignity and what was left of his shredded self respect refused to let him simply go behind Chris's back.  And the empty bullpen was the opportunity he needed. 

          He clutched the keys to Chris's Ram in one sweaty hand and his badge and his gun in the other and approached the office doorway.

          Chris was staring at a spot on the carpet just past his computer when J.D. walked in.  J.D. noticed the business card in Chris's hand only when Chris looked up and laid the card flat, face down on the top of the desk.

          "Chris," J.D. said, and Chris knew right away from the tone of the kid's voice that this was going to be a prelude to something he didn't want to hear.  He pulled the tattered edges of his focus together and forced himself to face J.D. straight on.  He gestured toward a chair by the door and unclenched his jaw to invite the young agent to sit.

          J.D. politely declined.

          Chris pulled himself up a little straighter in his chair and took a minute to examine J.D.'s face.  It was the first thing he had seen clearly all morning.  The kid looked haggard, older than his years, the bright spark and sharp intelligence missing from his eyes, replaced by the glaze of exhaustion and something harder and sharper that looked out of place on J.D.

          J.D. stretched out his left hand and placed something on Chris's desk.  Chris recognized the jingle of his own keys but he never took his eyes off J.D.'s face.

          "Thank you for letting me use your truck," J.D. said.  "And thank you for coming to get me."

          He found it suddenly hard to continue, held hypnotized by the intensity of Chris's gaze, boring into his brain.  He was certain Chris knew why he had come. 

          He looked away.

          The wall helped him focus and he licked his lips, determined to see it through.

          He watched his own right hand instead of Chris's face and stammered through the short explanation and apology he had prepared. 

          The words flowed over Chris like so much static, a short heap of bullshit that Chris didn't think J.D. believed himself.

          The kid only choked up once in the whole pretty speech.  Right at the part where he said, "Thank you for taking a chance on me and letting me live my dream even for a little while."

          If it were Buck standing in front of him delivering those carefully rehearsed lines, he would have called him a bunch of choice names; the most printable ones having to do with a complete and utter lack of balls, brains, and backbone.  He would have called Ezra a coward and a quitter straight up.  He would have let Vin see the disgust and Nathan the disappointment on his face.  He would have asked Josiah if he'd lost his mind.

          But this was not any of his other men.  This was J.D.  Wrapped up in a situation almost too painful to bear.

          But Chris had been known to cut and run, too.  Or at least to crawl into a hole and hide.

          Chris eyed the badge, gun, and cell phone sitting in a neat little pile on his desk, his lips pursed slightly, in an expression of distaste.  His eyes were narrowed when he looked back up, surrounded by lines of fatigue but intent and penetrating.  J.D. felt himself squirm under the scrutiny, but he held his ground.

          Chris's expression didn't change one iota, nor did he shift his gaze, even as he snaked his left arm around J.D.'s badge, his gun, and his phone, his link to the ATF and his band of brothers, his dream, his calling, and so much of what he was proudest of about himself.  J.D. was flooded by the sudden urge to take them back, to rescue them.  His fingers twitched.  But he stood still, firm and straight and as tall as he could manage.

          Chris's right hand slid across the desktop toward J.D.  He lifted it to reveal the business card.  It was a little worn at the edges, showing its age, but it was clearly legible as Chris flipped it over and laid it out in front of J.D.

          _Carl Braunzweig, Counselor/Therapist._

          J.D.'s eyes flew up to Chris's and he failed to hide his shock before Chris could see it.

          Chris's lips twitched minutely at J.D.'s expression.  He could have said that sometimes life gets too rough to handle on your own, but J.D. was finding that out in the worst possible way.  Instead he stated what was most important.

          "Talk to him.  He's good."

          Chris had good reason to know.  He'd been forced to see Braunzweig the first time.  And he was impressed enough to go back for the second session.  He held onto the card for a reason.  He'd dug it out of a dresser drawer the day after the shooting and stuck it in his wallet where it sat and waited for a moment where he thought J.D. might be receptive to the idea.  Or for the moment he'd be told to send J.D. to counseling or else. 

          Not that Chris didn't think that J.D. ought to talk to someone professional, but Braunzweig wasn't the first counselor the DPD had sent Chris to, especially after, well, after the bomb, so Braunzweig aside, Chris didn't put much stock in the effectiveness of counselors overall, let alone when the patient was less than receptive. 

          It seemed that J.D. was at a point where he might be ready to listen.

          J.D. picked up the card and read it one more time.  Chris waited until he had J.D.'s attention again before he added.  "See him.  Then we'll talk."

          J.D. stood there a minute longer, holding onto the card.  He had meant this to be a resignation.  An ending.  Final.  He expected to be signing papers or enduring Chris Larabee's deep disappointment.

          He was not sure exactly what it had just become.  A reprieve?  A stay of execution?  Or just more rope to twist from?  But he had to give it a chance, didn't he?  What kind of coward was he if he walked away without at least giving it a fight?  And hell, seeing a counselor couldn't hurt.

          He didn't ask Chris how he knew the man was good.  Chris's face told him more than Chris would ever put into words.  This wasn't an ATF recommendation.  It was a personal recommendation.  And that kind of recommendation deserved a try.

          J.D. nodded and swallowed.  "I will," he said solemnly.  He held the card in his hand like a lifeline he could follow back to his team, to himself, to the way life used to be.

          The tiniest flicker of a smile flashed over Chris's face as J.D. took the card.  "Go out the front door and take a cab," Chris said, turning back to his computer like it was just another ordinary day.  "Josiah will bring your bike over later."

          He pocketed the car keys.

          J.D. left the office and the floor feeling like a wrung-out dishrag, but he held the card in his hand and felt for the first time in weeks that he had power in his hands again, like maybe he could still change his fate.

          The series of knots working their way up Chris's spine loosened just a fraction when J.D. promised to call the counselor and the look in the kid's eyes told Chris he meant it.  Writing up a half a sick day for Agent Dunne, he considered that it would probably be wise to just follow the kid's example and take the rest of the day off, too.  Couldn't hurt, he considered.  Not like he was getting a hell of a lot done anyway.  And the silence out there in the bullpen was giving him an ulcer.

          Then he realized J.D.'s badge and gun and phone were still sitting on his desk.  He popped twice the dosage of aspirin to ease his aching head, swallowing them dry, and decided that Buck could take J.D.'s things back to the townhouse tonight.  He resigned himself to waiting  until Wilmington came back from lunch. 

          He was not looking forward to the conversation.

 

 

          Buck made it to the sub shop and back in record time, having phoned the order in on his way to the car and sweet-talked his way to the front of the cash register line.  It's not like it was J.D.'s fault he was stuck in the office and it sure as hell wasn't his fault he was stuck there with Chris.

          Chris. 

          Buck scowled to himself.  He could only deal with one problem child a day, dammit, and today was not Chris's day.

          He was still scowling by the time he had circumvented the remaining members of the press who had not gone off to better locations and better stories. 

          He had wanted, make that _expected_ Vin to step up to the plate by now.  Instead Tanner sat on his circumspect ass like he was keeping some kind of vigil.  Arriving at the empty bullpen, Buck frowned harder at J.D.'s empty desk chair.  Chris, however, was in his office right where Buck knew he would be.  He wondered if anyone was bringing the man food, although Buck knew damn well in a mood like this, Chris wasn't going to eat it anyway.

          He sighed.  If Tanner wasn't going to take a swing, then Buck was going to have to do it.  But he didn't feel like he had the strength to fight this same battle on two fronts.

          Buck tossed a still-warm pastrami reuben sandwich onto J.D.'s desk.  Then he took a calming breath and stepped up to Chris's door.

          The team leader looked up at Buck's rap on the doorframe, and that alone was an improvement.

          "J.D. give you your car keys?" Buck asked.  Then his eyes fell on the badge and gun on Chris's desk.

          Hot fury burned up into Buck's eyes before Chris even had a chance to say a word.  He had just enough time to back his chair away from his desk and stand up before Buck was around the desk and in his space.

          Any sympathy Buck had felt a minute ago, incinerated on contact with the white hot flame that erupted inside him at the sight of J.D.'s gun and badge coiled together on Chris's desk.

          "What did you do?" Buck snarled, eyes blazing mere inches from Chris's own.

          Chris was pretty sure he knew what Buck was asking, but the question stuck in his brain anyway.  And for a moment a stack of his recent sins and indiscretions, mouthing off to superiors, stonewalling, standing an all-night vigil with a woman he had no business being anywhere near.  Perhaps, he considered, he could have offered as much to J.D., who though surrounded by his brothers, surely faced his demons alone.

          As usual, his inability to offer an immediate answer let him slip another several inches deeper into Buck's shit list.

          "Did you make him resign?" Buck demanded, his voice soft and deadly.  "Or did you just stand there and let him quit?"

          The veins along Buck's temples stood out against his skin and Chris had to marvel that the man hadn't laid a hand on him yet, which meant, of course, that Buck wanted an answer first.  After that, there were likely to be fists.

          Chris didn't back up, back off, or even blink.  Buck had to give him credit for that.  He stood there like a brick wall and his voice was firm and calm when he said simply, "What I said to J.D. was between me and J.D."

          And Chris meant it, too. 

          Which meant there wasn't a damn thing Buck could do to make Chris tell him.    Which was why Chris was in charge of the team.

          Larabee would stand by that confidence with unbreakable determination, as stubbornly as he pursued the course that he thought was right, as determinedly as he had served his country, as doggedly as he went after gunrunners and murderers and those who preyed on the innocent, and as single-mindedly as he watched over the men he called his own.

          The thought punched a hole right through Buck's anger as he remembered.  there was every reason to trust that Chris would not, could not actually, throw one of his own to the wolves, and maybe especially not J.D.  Chris Larabee protected his own, even if Buck didn't particularly agree with the way he was going about it.

          Chris saw it the moment Buck backed off.  It wasn't a physical move.  Nothing had changed about that.  He was still inches from Chris's face, body angled forward, and if Chris looked down, he was pretty sure he'd see Buck's hands clenched hard into fists.  It was more that something had changed in Buck's face. 

          Buck's voice carried more of the weight of warning than violence when he spoke again.  "This could have happened to any of us."

          Chris did look away then, away from Buck.  Maybe.  Maybe it could have happened to any of them. 

          "But it didn't," Chris said.

          It could have happened to any police officer or agent or soldier in the world.  But that wasn't the point.  The shooting wasn't even the point.  Rules, policies, public opinion.  Those weren't the point either.

          Buck, of all people should understand that.  The point was exactly the reason Buck had been hovering over the kid day and night for the last two weeks.  The point was exactly why Buck was doing lunch runs and they were all drinking coffee until it ran through their veins like blood.  The point was that it happened to J.D.  J.D. was the point.

          Chris supposed he didn't quite get his meaning across because Buck pulled back, searing him from head to toe with a look of complete disgust.  Then he gathered up J.D.'s weapon and badge.  He gave Chris another derisive glare when he picked up the cell phone.

          And he left the office and the bullpen without another word.

          Chris stood where he was and just breathed.  He knew better than to walk after him.  It wasn't like Buck was listening anyway.  And at the moment, Chris wasn't entirely sure he had the words to even say what he had meant. 

          So he let him go.

          A wry little corner of his mind considered that someone would doubtless report later that the members of Team Seven were walking out left and right and that Chris Larabee had lost control of his men and the situation.  The upper brass would have a field day with that.

          His eye fell on his empty desktop.  At least he'd accomplished one mission today.  J.D. would get his possessions again as soon as Buck got home.

          He'd work out the wrong words to say to the brass, too, but not before he actually got called up on the carpet.  Until then, it just wasn't worth worrying about.

 

 

          Mary Travis had gotten her father-in-law to agree to set her up with an interview in the bureau's PR division.  It wasn't going to be the hard-hitting journalism that Marty Carlson wanted from her, but Marty was just going to have to take what he could get. 

          She had parked in the federal building garage where she always parked when she came to the ATF on business or for personal matters.  Most of the press had broken up, after all, but as soon as she caught the curious and competitive glowers of low-level reporters milling about the garage hoping for the break that would get their articles or their clips on the headline news., she realized she should have used the front doors instead.  It was bad enough that she had used her connections to get a piece of this story so Marty would stop threatening her job, but it was worse that the press corps would know that before she even got the interview started.

          Digging in her purse for her id to show at the security desk, she turned back to Elliot who was carrying the photo equipment to suggest he do the same, when the shatter-proof glass entrance door slammed open, sending her staggering back into Elliot in order to keep from being hit in the face.

          With a head full of steam, Buck hadn't even seen the woman approaching the door until it was too late to stop it.  Already beginning to apologize, he had her by the elbow before he even realized who it was.

          "Mary," he said.  His voice was surprised, but he didn't smile.

          "Hello, Buck," she said, steadying herself and assuring him that she had very good reflexes and was completely unhurt.

          The smile she got for her effort was not the brilliant mega-watt smile she was used to from Buck.  It barely even twitched up his mustache and was far too weak to make it all the way up to the blue eyes.  He looked very tired.  Of course, so did her father-in-law.  She imagined that everyone remotely involved with the entire incident was very very tired.  But it wasn't just that.  It struck her that Buck looked sad.

          She remembered Elliot and his collection of cameras.  He had the makings of a good reporter, but she wished sometimes that he weren't quite so quick.  He already had the palm-sized digital camcorder out and trained on her and Agent Wilmington

          "Elliot, turn the camera off," she said, fully expecting him to do so.

          "How are you holding up?" she asked kindly.  "And how's J.D.?"

          Buck was grateful for her asking and was still thinking about how best to answer her, when he saw them.

          Buck's head snapped up and Mary followed his gaze. 

          It was just a quiet personal conversation with someone she considered both a professional acquaintance and a friend.  And both of them should have known better than to try to have it out in the open because in a moment it would cease to be either quiet or personal.

          Her heart sank as Chantal Dailey, who believed in the destiny of her own rising star, eagerly shot out her first question from fifteen feet away and closing fast.

          "Agent Wilmington, can you tell us your reaction to this morning's news?"

          There were other questions, shouted over each other and rolling under each other. 

          Buck eyed them all with ill-disguised contempt.  Mary knew she should go inside now, to the interview she had scheduled and pull Elliot with her, but she couldn't.  Elliot wouldn’t come even if she grabbed his arm and tugged.  She was sure of that.  But she was at a loss to explain why her feet didn't move either.

          Buck knew how to resist.  He knew they would try to goad him with inflammatory questions purposely worded to wring a response.  But he had been trained to resist interrogation by trained torturers.

          No comment.  No comment.  No comment.

          He had only to repeat those two little words out loud several times, like Dorothy clicking her ruby-clad heels together, and then elbow a few people out of his way and he would be home free.  It was that easy.

          But the next question smacked him hard upside the head. 

          "Does the death of an unarmed boy change the ATF's decision not to take disciplinary action against Agent Dunne?"

          He jerked to a stop.  He didn't even know who asked the question.  Or who asked the next one or the next one.

          "Can you make a statement regarding the allegations of recklessness and inadequate training?"

          "What was Agent Dunne's reaction to learning of the death of the final boy?"

          Then his mouth was open.  And he couldn't seem to stop it.

 

 

          Ezra Standish returned from lunch as late as possible, mostly because he was not overeager to descend into the silent oppressive hell the bullpen had become that morning.  Chris hardly ever took him to task on the hours he kept, so long as he didn't miss a meeting, or God forbid, an unscheduled random act of fate, which had happened once or twice in the past.  Surely it was excusable to not be present for an event which no one could possibly have predicted.  He had tried that logic on Larabee once.  He was loath to try again.  However, he supposed that given Chris had arrived well after ten AM and was keeping impressively silent even by Chris Larabee standards, Ezra  didn't suppose today would be the day that Chris would sit him down and gave him that stern talking to.

          And, hee noted with satisfaction upon his return to the team bullpen, he was right.

          Neither Buck nor J.D. had yet returned.  And when they didn't show up after another half hour, Ezra ascertained via whispered conference from his teammates that although nothing had been confirmed, it was mutually suspected by all that the pair of them had taken the rest of the day off, which, Ezra noted, resulted in a palpable lifting of the heavy discomfort that had kept them on edge for the last several days.

          Speaking of which, Ezra turned to Vin.  "And our fearless leader?" he whispered, leaning toward the sniper. 

          Vin shrugged.  "Must be feelin' better.  He said two more words when I asked if he was eatin' lunch."  He flashed a crooked grin at his teammates.  "But I can't tell you what they were."

          Ezra had been half-resolved to try pleading his case again on the requisition that Larabee had denied that morning, but after Vin's little tale he decided not to chance it. 

          Vin's story was only partly true.  It was true that Chris seemed a lot more like himself by the time Vin got back from lunch.  Fortified with a good hot meal, he decided that someone ought to talk to the man, since it didn't look like Buck was planning to do it.  He poked his head in the door and asked Chris if he wanted something to eat.  Chris, who finally looked like he was actually working shook his head no and even offered up a perfunctory "thanks". 

          He didn't look up, though, so Vin asked, "You all right?"  Although it was patently obvious he wasn't.  Not really.  But then, given the circumstances, none of them were.

          True to form Chris didn't answer the question.  He still didn't look up, only responded tightly, "I'm not the one you need to worry about."

          But hell if Vin was going to tell that to the others.

         

         

          Although it was getting late, the day was not yet over for Josiah Sanchez.  He parked in the lot of Buck's and J.D.'s townhouse.  The few reporters still milling around the entrance eyed Josiah curiously as he drove in.  He figured he'd need help getting J.D.'s bike out of the back of his ancient Suburban, and he'd be better off fetching Buck than dragging Dunne out here into the open.

          Buck buzzed him through the security lobby, but did not answer when Josiah arrived at the front door.  Curious, Josiah gave the handle a try, and since it was unlocked, he wandered in.

          He saw no sign of J.D. but Buck was sprawled over half of the living room sofa, nursing a longneck and watching the television with the sound off.  His left arm held the remote suspended out straight in front of him, gangster style, like he was hoping to shoot the TV.  He looked about as completely miserable as Josiah had ever seen the man.

          Josiah wandered around the end of the sofa and looked down at Buck.  Buck didn't even look at him, just kept glowering at the silent pictures flickering across the television screen.

          Josiah took a moment to watch the images.  Then he went to the kitchen and got a bottle of beer for himself.  He plopped down into the sofa space that Buck had left available. 

          Buck's eyes stayed fixed on the television screen, his scowl growing steadily darker. 

          Josiah looked around.  "Is J.D. here?"

          "No," Buck answered.  His eyes slid over to Josiah and he waved his bottle in the air as he spoke.  "He had some errands to run. "

          Josiah nodded.

          "I brought his bike," Josiah said.

          Eyes still fixed on the television, Buck grunted to let Josiah know he had heard.

          "Actually," Josiah said leaning back.  "I thought maybe he could use some cheering up."  He looked over at Buck.  "But it looks to me like you might be in some need of that yourself."

          Buck raised his bottle in response.

          Josiah looked at Buck with some concern.  "Are you okay?" he asked finally.

          In response, Buck stabbed the mute button on the remote control viciously with his thumb.  The sound came roaring on in time for Josiah to see a repeat of the report that had just finished when he entered the room.  He wasn't really listening until the moment he saw Buck's own face on the screen amid flashing bulbs and boom mikes.  At some point today, the man had been captured and surrounded in the parking garage.  And whatever had happened was interesting enough to make the evening news.

          "Oh dear," Josiah said solemnly.

          "Oh you ain't seen nothin' yet," Buck replied sourly.  "You just keep watchin'."

          Listening intently, Josiah was hard pressed to make out many of the questions from the small knot of journalists firing them out rapidly and simultaneously at the ATF agent caught in their midst.  But seemingly, that wasn't the important part anyway.  Sound editing insured that the important part stood out.  Consequently, Josiah had no difficulty hearing Buck's voice coming out of the television loud and clear.

          "Agent Dunne is a fully trained federal agent.  His actions were not reckless."

          Josiah shrugged.  True, Chris would not be happy to learn that one of his agents had violated his long-standing and precisely-worded directive not to speak to the press, but it didn't seem like much to get upset about.

          As if Buck had read his mind, he said.  "Keep listening."

          He pointed the mouth of his beer bottle at the screen like he was directing a band and right on cue, there was Buck on television growling out.  "Maybe you forget how much J.D. Dunne has done for this city and this state.  How many criminals he's put behind bars.  That's the problem with you people.  A guy makes one little mistake and that's all you see."

          Buck dropped his head into his hand and moaned.

          "I see," Josiah said.

          A smiling sportscaster came on.

          Buck stabbed his thumb down on the channel buttons without even looking up. 

          "Maybe you forget…" said the TV.

          He changed the channel again.  "J.D. Dunne has done for this city."

          And again.  ""Put behind bars…"

          And again and again and again.

          "The problem with you people"

          "Maybe you forget…"

          "One little mistake…"

          Josiah finally put his hand over top of Buck's and hit the power button.  He pulled the remote out of Buck's hand.

          "Chris is going to kill me," Buck groaned from behind the hands that covered his face.

          "Well," Josiah said, looking for something encouraging to say.  "Maybe he'll be more forgiving than you think."

          Buck turned his head just far enough to let Josiah see written on his face just how stupid Buck thought that statement was.

          And Josiah supposed he deserved that.

          "Any chance you were taken out of context?"

          Buck gave a pessimistic snort.  "I wish."

          Josiah leaned back against the cushions and took a long drink from his bottle before giving it one more shot.  "Well, he hasn't come storming over here to shoot you yet, so take that as an encouraging sign."

          It wasn't exactly confidence inspiring, he knew, but it was true at least.

          Buck gave him a long and baleful look before saying.  "That'll change as soon as he turns on his TV."

          Buck lifted his beer bottle toward Josiah in salute.  "Nice knowin' ya, Preacher."

          The graying profiler nodded his head philosophically.  He knew when to concede defeat.

 

 

          After catching a short nap on the couch in his office, Chris drove himself home in soothing silence.  He was looking forward to bed, a whiskey, and maybe more whiskey.  That was his plan for the evening in its entirety.

          There were five messages on his answering machine.  He ignored them and went to bed down the horses.

          By the time he finished, his cell phone had rung twice.  He would have answered, but he had his hands full trying to avoid getting kicked by a particularly willful and out-of-sorts gelding.

          He gave the beast a few of his choicest words before closing up.  Outside, he spared a glance toward the sky, which, he noted, had darkened considerably since he had pulled into the driveway. 

          He accessed his voice mail as he trudged across the driveway and around to his back door.  Both calls were from Travis, but there was only one message, an ominous request to call when he was done watching the news.

          "I don't have to tell you just how bad this makes us look," Travis was saying an hour and twenty minutes later.

          Chris stood in the center of his living room, watching Buck demonstrate "stupid" on his television, over and over again, in living color, on every local news channel and at least one national affiliate.  He was afraid to check CNN. 

          It had taken Chris an hour to return Travis's call, as it had taken several viewings and another stiff drink before he felt quite coherent enough to call his boss.

          "Chris…" Travis prompted sternly.  He was waiting for some kind of response to his strongly-worded explanation about just how bad Buck's statements made the ATF and Team Seven and J.D. Dunne especially, look."

          Chris was tempted to point out that any sentence beginning with "I don't have to tell you," should mean just that and not be followed by several sentences actually telling you what that person didn't have to tell you.  But that was the whiskey talking through his empty stomach. 

          "I understand," Chris said aloud. 

          "You know that PR is going to have to do considerable damage control," Travis said.

          _Subtext,_ Chris thought, _if they ask you to make a statement, you bet your ass you're going to have to do it this time._

          "Yes, sir," Chris replied, not actually agreeing to anything.

          "And if they want to talk to Wilmington," Travis said, his tone brooking no compromise, "there's not a whole hell of a lot I can do to tell them no."

          The whiskey told Chris to hang up now. 

          "You need to understand the extent of the directorship's displeasure here,"  the AD intoned.

          "Oh, I understand…" Chris replied and wondered why he never listened to the whiskey.

          _It's a bad connection, sir.  I can't hear you,_ Chris thought.

          It occurred to him that between the sleepless night and the whiskey he might have achieved a certain level of hysteria.

          It would not do to laugh now and let AD Travis know that the man he was talking to was ever so slightly drunk. 

          Shit, he was tired.

          "Sir," Chris interrupted finally.  He had no idea just what his boss had been saying at that moment, but since he wasn't going to get any more focused or any more coherent standing here while the room spun around him, he jumped in anyway.  "Do you think that PR or the directorship are going to want to talk to Buck or to me or even to you tonight?"

          He grimaced at the clock and wondered why he was even still on his feet.

          Travis huffed out a grim laugh.  "They've already spoken to me tonight."

          Point taken, Chris noted. 

          "But I imagine first thing in the morning will be soon enough," the former judge conceded.

          "Then I guess I have all night to work on it," Chris replied curtly.

          Travis snorted again.

          "You call me when you come up with a brilliant idea," the AD said tartly.  "I'll be up."

          "I'll do that," Chris answered.

          He stared at his disconnected phone for half a second.  Then his head cleared just enough to illuminate his best immediate option with startling clarity.

          "Fuck it," Chris said. 

          And went to bed.

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

 

          It wasn't a lot of sleep, but it was good enough, and Chris hauled himself out of bed a lot more easily than he expected.  He shortened his morning run, making up for the lack of miles by running them harder.  He left the house even earlier than usual, fully aware that the brass was going to expect him in bright and early to deal with his agent's egregious PR blunder.  In anticipation, he determined it was better to appease the urge to shoot something repeatedly _before_ he went upstairs to get his first scolding.  He brought an extra large cup of extra sweet, extra light coffee to Dan Petersen for opening the firing range up early for him.  No one bothered him for a solid hour while he wiped out four innocent targets with a host of small arms, after which he felt much better equipped to handle the rest of his day.

          Chris threw Dan a thank you on his way out. 

          Team Seven's bullpen was still dark and silent when Chris arrived, as he expected.  He checked his e-mail and listened to several strident voice mail messages, most of which came with demands that Chris call immediately.  Travis had left a message on his cell phone noting that Chris had thus far failed to call him with any brilliant suggestions for dealing with Buck's one-man media show, and suggesting that since Travis's schedule was rapidly filling up with special conferences it would be good if Chris could meet with him immediately upon entering the federal building.

          It did not bode well when AD Travis went out of his way to be sarcastic. 

          He bit the bullet and dialed his phone.

          After all, he couldn't begin to formulate a strategy without knowing something more about the circumstances they were facing.

          Happily, Travis had plenty of information and was happy to oblige with a list of several community organizations that had called to complain, a statement now playing on the news stations and the radio from Shana Morton's own lawyer, as a prelude, no doubt, to the civil suit that was sure to be launched shortly.  Calls had come from the mayor's office and the governor's office couched as simple inquiries, of course, because technically the mayor and the governor couldn't say shit about federal bureaus.  The local FBI, located just on the other side of the same building, was quick to distance itself from the unfortunate statements made by the ATF agent and to note extensive evidence of its caring and community involvement.  The Denver Police Department was more circumspect, saying that it could not comment but that the actions of one agent should not be confused as representative of all law enforcement or all agents.  It was just one more occasion to make Chris grateful that he and Buck still had a friend in Captain Bryson.

          "This is a lot more than a black eye," Travis stated.

          Chris couldn’t argue with that.  A large portion of the Denver community had risen up to array themselves firmly against the bureau's "callous disregard for the safety of the members of the community it was supposed to protect" and utter indifference or, worse yet, ingrained racism toward certain segments of that very same community. 

          The AD's voice was grave as he told Chris, "I'm sure you've considered that this potentially puts J.D. in a much worse position."

          Chris shifted positions in his chair.  He knew all that.  What he didn't know was what kind of damage control the brass was calling for.  So he cut to the chase and asked and was gratified to find out that a large number of people had their noses out of joint and all believed in their right to vent their displeasure and have a say in how to address this issue.  That, of course, meant, in typical bureaucratic style, there was no decision yet because there was no consensus.  It was rare, but it did happen once in a while that Chris Larabee had occasion to appreciate the inefficiencies of management by a series of committees.

          "When is your first meeting?" Chris asked.

          Travis looked down his list. 

          It was early yet and any of the brass who were in the building were likely building up the barricades and preparing their list of demands.  They wouldn't start calling Travis unless they either wanted details or were ready to start handing out decisions.  That meant all of Travis's morning meetings were likely to be fact-finding missions to delve into Agent Wilmington's character and records, to debate Team Seven's character and records as a whole, to return to debating Agent Dunne's character and records, just in case they missed something and he really was an evil, vicious bastard masquerading in the guise of a dedicated, earnest, and honest agent.  No doubt, this would also be a good opportunity to scrutinize the individual records of the other members of Team Seven and to call into question, one more time, the leadership and style of the team leader. 

          Of course, they would be releasing a statement of some kind to the press just as soon as the designated speechifier arrived for the day.  No doubt it would be better than the purposefully vague and incurably lame "The ATF intends to look into this matter carefully" they put out onto the airwaves last night.

          "Okay," Chris said simply, rising from his chair and heading for the door.

          Travis looked at him.  "Frankly," he replied, "I had hoped for a little more thought from you."

          Chris turned back to look at the AD.  A little smirk played around his lips as he answered, "Trust me.  You don't want to hear what I'm thinking."

          Travis's answering look was only one part empathy.

 

 

          Across town at the Clarion News, Elliot Koos was making his way through a sea of congratulatory backpats for his coup in recording ATF Agent Buck Wilmington's responses to journalists last night and getting it out on the wires.  In the end, it had been Elliot's footage that had been shown by most of the news channels.  He was modest and cited luck in having just the right camera angle and access to immediate editing.  Plus, he was quick to add, Mary Travis deserved credit for getting them there at all, as she was the one who stopped Wilmington and gave them access to the agent before he could get away. 

          The best part of the coup, of course, was the irony that the interview footage of the year was shot, not by CNN's cameras, or a television news crew of any kind.  It was shot by a journalist from a newspaper, a fact which pleased Marty Carlson to no end.  If possible, he was even more puffed up by the attention than Elliot was, and he wasted no time in telling Mary that that was exactly the kind of hard-hitting journalism he had wanted from her and that she had more than come through for them on this one.

          She excused herself to the restroom, where she could hardly look at herself in the mirror.  It didn't matter that she had not intended to set up this sneak attack on Buck.  She had only wanted to know, as a friend, how he was doing.  But for all the world, Elliot's footage sure looked like her innocent question was just the pretense to trap him under the spotlight. 

          She couldn't even blame Elliot for shooting the footage, even though she had asked him to turn off the camera.  That was his job.  The private exchange she had expected to have with Buck wouldn't have been worthy of filming.  It was only when the other journalists smelled the blood on the water that it became newsworthy.  It was in no way reasonable to think an aspiring reporter with a camera already in his hand would miss a golden opportunity like that.  So, she couldn't blame Elliot. 

          She could only blame herself.

          She pressed a cold, wet paper towel to her red-rimmed eyes hoping to soothe them.  It had been a horrible and mostly sleepless night, and she had called her father-in-law repeatedly to explain and to apologize and to apologize again.  He was understandably unhappy, to put it mildly, but he was not planning to disown her or his grandchild.  After all, it wasn't entirely her fault.  Buck shot his mouth off all on his own.

          She wanted to call Buck, too, but she didn't have his number.  She knew she could get the number from Chris Larabee, but she didn't have the guts to call him.

          As a result, every one of her tortured dreams had her trying and trying to find Buck or her father-in-law, or J.D., or a whole host of other people so she could say she was sorry.

          By the time she returned to her desk, one of the department's bright young rising stars suggested that the Clarion's coup called for a bona fide celebration.  The suggestion was met with resounding agreement and an assistant was pressed into service calling around for food.  Marty loudly announced that he would buy for Elliot and Mary in honor of their journalistic prowess.

          Mary took her purse.  In the festive din, no one noticed as she quietly slipped out the door. 

 

 

          Buck's day began with him sneaking sheepishly downstairs not sure whether he ought to try to avoid J.D. or get the inevitable confrontation over and done with.  The shower was running in the downstairs bathroom, so he knew he had a few minutes to make up his mind.  He used it to make coffee, under the assumption that a big scalding hot shot of caffeine might jolt his sluggish sleep-deprived brain into action.  In the meantime, he leaned on the counter and tried to think through his options.

          There was no possible hope that J.D. had missed any of the hundred or so showings of Buck's big news-making moment last night.  Based on the way the front door slammed when J.D. came home last night, followed by the slamming of the door to his room, the bathroom door, the cupboard doors, and possibly every other door on the first floor of the townhouse they shared, Buck had seen and heard quite enough.  Buck was fully aware of his own cowardice, upstairs in his own room, lying on his bed and staring at his ceiling.  He made no move to go downstairs, largely because he had no idea at all what he could possibly say in his own defense. 

          He listened for J.D. to come stomping up the stairs to have it out and didn't know whether to be relieved or worried when J.D. didn't.  Buck was sure the kid had decided that he didn't want to talk to Buck just then.  It got quiet downstairs after a while, but Buck stayed upstairs watching his ceiling for a good chunk of the rest of the night. 

          He supposed he'd find out soon enough if J.D. was talking to him this morning.  Trouble was, he still didn't know what he could say.

          The shower went off, signaling the imminent end to Buck's reprieve.

          A few minutes later he heard the tell-tale squeak of the hinge on the bathroom door. 

          He poured the first fruits from the coffee maker into a clean cup and waited.

          He didn't wait long.  Barefoot and only half dressed, J.D. came into the kitchen and leveled a glare at Buck that Larabee himself would have been proud of.  Jabbing one finger of death across the empty air toward Buck, he opened his mouth to speak his mind.  But he snapped it closed just as suddenly.  Then he gave Buck another searing look and left the kitchen.

          "J.D.," Buck called after him.

          He was answered by the sound of J.D.'s bedroom door slamming closed.

          Buck cringed.

          He had been so busy trying to figure out what he could say that it never even occurred to him that J.D. would be too angry to speak to him at all.

          Buck hadn't even finished his miserable cup of coffee before J.D. crossed the kitchen doorway, keys in hand.  Scowling thunderously he went right out the front door without a look or a word.

          Buck swore.  He dumped the rest of his cup of coffee, stabbed the off switch on the coffee machine and went upstairs to grab his keys and his gear.  He came back down again at a run, but J.D.'s bike was gone by the time he got to the parking lot. 

          "Dammit," he sighed and jogged the rest of the way to his truck.  A part of him wondered why he was in such a big hurry to get his head chewed off and his ass handed to him, the first by J.D., the second by Chris.

          He bent a few traffic rules severely and pissed off a few rush hour commuters, but he managed to pull his truck into his usual parking space before J.D. even got his helmet off.

          Apparently the kid was no longer too angry to speak.  He waited just long enough for Buck to come around the back of his vehicle and then he let him have it with both barrels.

          Buck's eyes twitched nervously, giving the parking lot a hasty scan.  If there were reporters, he didn't see them.

          J.D. didn't seem to much care who was in the parking garage.  He moved himself well into Buck's personal space and let loose a stinging rapid-fire volley at full volume, picking up steam as he went. 

          Buck backpedaled and then realized that they were attracting attention, as heads both far and near turned in their direction.  He started walking toward the entrance doors where he had been cornered last night. 

          J.D. didn't even hesitate.  And he sure as hell didn't stop for breath.  He kept pace right alongside, now taking the opportunity to drive each point home by poking Buck hard in the shoulder with the first two fingers of his right hand.

          Buck knew he was going to be polka-dotted black and blue and soon, but he didn't say a word.  What could he say?  Everything J.D. said was true, which was the worst part.  Buck walked faster.

          The elevator, more particularly the agents already inside it, offered a short reprieve.  J.D. boiled silently all the way up to the eleventh floor, as the other riders kept as much distance as possible, considering they were trapped inside a metal box, from the seething ball of Irish fury and the poster boy for why you don't just tell the media what you're really thinking. 

          J.D. and Buck were early.  Chris heard them coming all the way down the hall.  Technically, he only heard J.D., but it wasn't hard to figure out that Buck was with him, based on the scathing diatribe spewing down the hall, loudly enough that Chris could make out the words well before either man reached the bullpen door.  He cringed inwardly.

         "Is your mouth even connected to your brain?" J.D. was saying.   "A mistake you called it.  No, a little mistake.  Did you think about anything before you spoke or did you just open your mouth and let it dribble out?  The kid was fifteen goddamn it.  Fifteen years old, and you don't think that’s a big deal?"         

          There was a pause for J.D. to breathe.

          The fact that Buck didn't even try to get a word in during the pause, caused Chris to get up from his desk chair and go to the door.

          It was a short pause.  "IA cleared the shooting, Buck.  And you made me look like an idiot.  I did not make a mistake.  I followed all the procedures and that kid was part of the robbery.  The bureau held a goddamn press conference to say so.  And you just made me look like a goddamn, incompetent idiot!"

          The last part was so loud that Chris winced.

          And then they were in the bullpen doorway.  J.D. was practically on tiptoe raining all the holy hell his tongue could manage down on Buck's head, which was already hanging so low, he was nearly on eye-level with J.D.

          Buck saw Chris standing there in the doorway and his shoulders sagged down even further.

          As Chris watched, J.D. inhaled again and looked to be winding up for another round.  Not that Buck didn't deserve it.  He surely did.  But time was a-wasting here.  "Hey!" Chris barked into the breathing space.

          Buck looked startled. 

          J.D. looked perturbed.

          "I think Buck understands your point," Chris said sternly.

          J.D. exhaled and dropped down to his heels.  Buck slunk between J.D and Chris and slumped into his desk chair, J.D.'s searing look dogging him all the way there.

          "Come here," Chris said to J.D., and he ushered the young agent into his office.

          "Don't go anywhere," he growled at Buck before closing the door, "I have a few choice things to say to you, too."

          J.D. was still vibrating with anger.  Breathing hard, he stood and glowered at the top of Chris's desk.

          Chris regarded him for a moment then slid one hip down to perch on the corner of his desk.

          "You done?" he asked.

          "No," J.D. snapped.  "I'm not done."  He pointed at the door.  "He couldn't have made me look worse if he had sat down and planned it out."

          "You said that," Chris said evenly.

          J.D. glared at him.  "Well, it's true, isn't it?"

          "It's true," Chris replied.

          "So," J.D. demanded.  "How come I'm the one who got called into your office?  You ought to be the one ripping him a new one, not me!"

          "Exactly," Chris said.

          A challenge flared in J.D.'s eyes.  Chris's gaze was unwavering.  To J.D.'s credit he understood the warning and got himself back under control. 

          Chris leaned over his computer for a moment to let his agent breathe.

          J.D. seemed calmer when he looked up.  Still angry.  But more controlled.

          "You here to work today?" Chris asked him.

          "Yes," J.D. replied and his shoulders straightened automatically. 

          "You have your badge, gun, and cell phone?" Chris asked mildly.

          J.D. peeled back the corner of his jacket to reveal the badge and phone clipped to his belt.

          "Good," Chris nodded.  Then he smiled.  "I'd a hated to lose ya."

          In the face of Chris's grin, J.D. smiled, too.  It was unwilling, but he couldn't help it.  "I'd hate to be lost," he replied, and Chris's grin got broader.

          "Then get to work," the team leader said, turning toward his own desk chair, and J.D. knew he had been dismissed.

          He was reaching for the door, when Chris spoke again, his voice soft, "You know he was protecting you."

          J.D.'s hand stilled on the doorknob and he stiffened.  "That's a hell of a way to go about it," he retorted.

          "Yeah," Chris agreed quietly.  "But that's what he was doing."

          J.D. regarded his shoes for a moment.  Then he opened the door and left.

          Chris watched Buck's hangdog expression follow J.D. to his desk. 

          He let out a breath of exasperation that was part sigh and part growl.  Then he hollered out to Buck.  "Get in here.  Now!"

          The door shut behind him.

          And J.D. had the satisfaction of telling Josiah, who had just arrived, that Buck was in with Chris and it looked like it was going to be a while. 

          "Close the door and sit down," Chris growled the moment Buck's feet breached the office doorway.

          Buck thought for a just a moment of exercising his prerogative to stand and take his medicine like a man.  But just the fact that he had been told to sit indicated that this was going to be a longer than average tirade, and all of a sudden the fight drained right out of him, like he'd been punctured.

          He shut the door and sat down, a large sigh escaping from him as he slouched into the chair across from Chris's desk. 

          Chris's eyes drilled a hole into his head, and Buck shifted uncomfortably in the chair.

          "I'm sorry," Buck blurted out, unable to stand the silence any longer.

          Chris's chin came up and the hard eyes took on a lunatic cast.  "You're sorry?" Chris asked his voice soft and deadly. 

          Buck shriveled a little farther in his chair as Chris continued to give him the crazy eyes, which Buck knew for a fact were a lot more fun to see when they were directed at someone else.

          He would have preferred that Chris just decked him.  It would be less painful.

          Confession struck him as a good idea.  Confession and groveling. 

          He willed himself to stop sinking in his chair and he spread his palms wide. 

          "Yes, sorry." he said mournfully, "Right now I'm about the sorriest person I've ever met." 

          "And what are you sorriest about?" Chris asked, voice as cold and deceptive as a sheet of black ice on the highway. 

          Imagining he could feel the heat of Larabee's glare, Buck avoided looking at the man directly and let his eyes travel all the way up to the ceiling instead, while he gave the question some thought.

          All the possible answers spilled through his mind, each one more miserable than the last.  What was he sorriest about?  Violating Chris's trust?  Sticking his foot in his mouth and making himself and his whole team look stupid—on television, no less?  Or that looking stupid was the best case outcome and that the worst case outcome made them look like a bunch of uncaring monsters?  Or that the very second J.D. seemed to be almost on the verge of climbing out of the hell surrounding the robbery and shooting, he, the kid's self-appointed protector, singlehandedly threw him right back down in it?  No doubt about it.  That was definitely the worst part.

          He knew Chris was still waiting for an answer, twisting the knife and watching him squirm.

          "I'm sorry for all of it, Chris," he blurted out finally.  "I fucked up big time.  I made the team look bad.  I made myself look stupid.  And I made things even harder on J.D."

          "And," Chris prompted coldly.  Apparently Buck wasn't bleeding enough for him yet.  He proceeded to open up another vein.

          "I violated your instructions," he added, hurrying on to add before Chris even had to hint.  "I know your policy about talking to the press, and I let my mouth run on without any advice from my brain."

          He winced, hearing Chris say those very words to him in an echo of memory.  At the time it had pissed Buck off.  Now he could see what Chris meant.

          "I made the ATF look bad.  I made our division look bad.  I damaged our reputation," he was just grabbing at straws now.  It was downright disconcerting how much there was still to say.

          He looked up at Chris.  "I got you in a lot of trouble."

          "You got both of us in a lot of trouble," Chris corrected stonily.

          Belatedly, it occurred to Buck how remarkably far away their supervisory chain had remained through the last several weeks.  It was Chris, and no one else, who took him to task over interfering with the crime scene crew and keeping them from closing the scene.  No one but Chris would say anything about him storming out of work yesterday.  Despite the evident involvement of bureau lawyers, several layers of directors and assistant directors, the PR department, and Internal Affairs, Team Seven had seen precious few strangers violate the sanctity of their bullpen.  Except for meetings with Chris and J.D., the powers that be were staying locked up in their bureaucratic ivory towers.  And even J.D. had gone up to speak to the directorship's representatives only in the company of Chris Larabee. 

          Of course Buck was aware that the brass, the AD, and legal and public relations department had been chewing on Chris, but he hadn't it given it much thought.  Largely because that was what Chris did: stood defense, deflected fallout, and took flak.  That was part of his job.  And no matter what people said behind Larabee's back about his famous lack of diplomacy—he did it more effectively than anyone Buck had ever known. 

          It just hadn't occurred to Buck to wonder just how badly Chris was getting fragged standing there and taking incoming fire.  He'd been busy protecting J.D., he told himself.  But his stinging conscience reminded him of the number of times he'd silently accused Chris of taking too long, or having his priorities in the wrong order.  It had been hard watching J.D. twist in the wind and feeling like his hands were tied.  In parsing out parts of a mission, Buck understood the art of playing to people's strengths.  His strengths lay in morale.  His job was to make sure the kid was okay.  Chris was supposed to lead them all the hell out of this mess.   

          Buck conceded that he might have taken Chris's ability to work the occasional tactical miracle just a little bit for granted. 

          Especially now his big fat mouth had earned them fire from a whole new set of fronts. 

          Buck's stomach sank right down into his toes. 

          However much he might deserve it right now, Buck knew that Chris wouldn't throw him to the wolves either, but there was no doubt that Chris was going to haul Buck upstairs to see the brass this time.

          "Fuck," Buck said uselessly and then practically winced to hear himself blurt out another pointless "I'm sorry." 

          "Sorry doesn't fix the problem, Buck," Chris grated out, popping out Buck's name like it left a bad taste in his mouth.

          Buck hated it when Chris said his name like that.  He glanced up.  At least the crazy eyes had disappeared, but Chris was still furious.  It was all over his face.  And Buck couldn't really blame him. 

          "Tell me what you need me to do, and I'll do it," Buck answered earnestly.

          Buck supposed he couldn't blame Chris for the grim, hard laugh that escaped him either.  After all, it was a fine time to come to heel, after the damage was already done. 

          "Start by keeping your mouth shut," Chris said nastily. 

          Self defense was automatic.  "I was only trying to--,"

          Chris cut him off.  "I know what you were trying to do," he snapped.

          He gave Buck a long look that screamed loudly, _How could you be so stupid?_

          "Unless you're holding a press conference," Chris continued icily, "the next time a reporter asks you a question, you keep your mouth shut."

          Buck felt his face flame.  "I hear you," he answered.

          He wished he'd been smart enough to follow those orders roughly twenty hours earlier.  Christ, how had he ever passed his SEAL training in resisting interrogation?

          He couldn't remember the last time he had felt so shredded.

          The bleak expression in Buck's eyes when he finally looked up told Chris that this one time, at least, he had finally got his point through Wilmington's thick, hard skull. 

          He ought to, Chris knew, kick Buck's ass up one wall of the office and down the other and then send him home packing for a nice long time out of Chris's sight without pay, which would also make the brass happy.  Making the brass happy might have the benefit of making Chris's own life a little easier, for the moment, but it wasn't realistically going to solve the problem. 

          What Buck had done, he had not done for himself.  He had done it for a teammate.  And that was his only saving grace.

          Chris leveled a finger at Buck.  "The only reason I didn't throw you out of here on your ass today is because I know why you did it.  If I thought for one minute that you had something in mind other than defending J.D. out there yesterday, sitting in this office would be the least of your worries."

          Buck flinched. 

          "But you did defend him," Chris said.  "In the worst and stupidest possible way," he added, which Buck did not dispute, "but he needed to hear it."

          Chris regarded Buck for a moment, eyes narrowed in thought, like he was considering his next words carefully.

          "Stupid or not," the team leader said finally.  "You did accomplish something."

          "What was that?" Buck asked unwillingly. 

          A sardonic smile flickered across Chris's face like a mirage and then it was gone.  "He finally defended himself," Chris answered.  "While he was yelling at you."

          Buck frowned and scrolled back through the litany of scalding words J.D. had leveled at him this morning.  Chris was right.  There it was in playback.  For the first time, J.D. admitted that he did nothing wrong.  And that Tyson Morton was not just an innocent bystander.

          "Yeah, he did," Buck said, brutally squashing the fledgling smile that threatened to erupt on his lips at the realization.  He opted for nodding soberly. 

          Chris cocked his head over to one side, his gaze soft for just a moment.  Then the moment was over.  "You're still in deep shit," he grated.  "I'll get back to you on how you're going to fix it."

          Buck recognized his cue to leave when he heard it, and he slunk back out as quickly as he could, right into the high beams of J.D.'s scalding scowl. 

          Buck went to the kitchenette where there was coffee, at least, and the kid couldn’t see him smile.

          Josiah came into the kitchen area just as Buck was pouring his coffee.  The profiler circled around him, looking him over closely. 

          "No visible marks, no bruising, no blood," he said thoughtfully.  "Did he poison you or just hit you where it wouldn't show?"

          "Har de har har," Buck retorted.

          Josiah leaned on the counter and smiled smugly.  "Oh, you think that was good?  You just wait until the rest of the boys get here."

          He paused thoughtfully.  "The rest of the boys and all the other agents who work in the building," he continued. 

          He was evidently still thinking as he reached for the coffee pot because he added, "Our neighbors in the FBI, too, probably."

          Buck grimaced at that idea. 

          "Ah," Josiah continued a little more loudly.  "It was a noble sacrifice, offering yourself up like that." Still leaning on the counter, he slid over and leaned closer to offer conspiratorially, "Having someone new for the press to shoot flames and arrows at seems to have done J.D. a world of good."

          "Thanks," Buck said sourly. 

          The situation didn't improve any when he reached his desk.

          Vin had just arrived, having bummed a ride from Nathan.  As soon as they laid eyes on Buck, the two men split into opposite directions, giving him a wide berth as they headed for their desks, both of regarding him with something that looked suspiciously close to pity.

          "You doin' okay, J.D.?" Nathan asked, sweeping by.

          Buck didn't get to hear the answer over Vin's loud "Damn, Buck!"

          The sniper shook his head.  And said it again.  "Damn!"  He let out a long, low whistle.  "I had to watch that show you put on three times on three different channels just to make sure I was hearin' it right."

          "Three?" Nathan interjected.  "More like three hundred." 

          Buck made a sour face at both of them.

          "Is there coffee?" Vin asked of no one in particular.

          "In the kitchen," Josiah answered.

          Vin gave Buck, his chair, and his entire desk a wide berth as he passed.  "You just stay right there, Bucklin," he advised.  "And keep your bad juju to yourself."

          "Don't worry, Vin," Nathan offered.  "Stupid ain't contagious."

          J.D. made a derisive little sound and muttered something like, "I hope not."

          Buck just pursed his lips and took his lumps.

          He was grateful for a distraction as Ezra breezed in whistling cheerfully.

          The four agents in the room turned to watch the southerner head straight for his desk and log in.

          "Good morning, gentlemen," he drawled happily.

          Josiah turned to check the wall clock against his computer clock.

          "It's a mite early ain't it?" Vin asked, returning from the kitchenette and making another wide circle around Buck.  He looked at his computer clock.  "Seems to me you got another good three, four hours of grumbling and complaining."

          "And avoiding work," Nathan added.

          Ezra just smiled, straightened his stapler, and laid out his pens.

          "What's got you so cheery?" Josiah asked.

          Ignoring the frown J.D. threw in his direction, Ezra replied simply, "What's not to be cheerful about?  The sun is shining.  Birds are singing.  There's hot coffee to be had, and," he added with relish, "One of my teammates has blundered, erred, and fouled up so badly that I figure I can get away with just about anything today, without fear of retribution or reprisal from our fearless leader."  A wide, self-satisfied grin spread across his face.

          "Yeah he did," J.D. grumbled his agreement.

          Ezra raised his coffee cup toward Buck, who was evidently not enjoying Standish's unexpected good humor.  "Thank you in advance," Ezra said grandly,  "For making me look so good."

          Nathan snorted.  "How come you're here then instead of taking the opportunity to come in late?"

          Ezra pointed a paper cup salute toward Nathan.  "A most astute question, my friend.  In fact," he said, leaning back with a contented sigh.  "I gave due consideration to remaining snug beneath the covers for an extra hour or two, in light of the fact that Mr. Larabee would be so busy with Mr. Wilmington that he would hardly notice.  But then I realized that Mr. Larabee will be so busy cleaning up after Agent Wilmington's blunder that he could hardly have time to notice or care what the rest of us are doing.  And in light of the rarity of such a circumstance, I determined not to waste a moment of it."  He smiled genially at everyone in the room.  Then he drained his Starbuck's cup with one long swallow and went to the kitchenette for another cup.

          Buck glowered at the top of his desk and made a half-hearted attempt at working, while his teammates continued to make jokes at his expense.  Except for J.D.  He just added his total agreement to the end of each one. 

          It was notable that Chris, whose office door was open, gave no sign whatsoever that he had even heard—which Buck knew he had—let alone that he planned to step in and interrupt all the fun the team was having instead of actually working. 

          Then again, Buck realized that if he thought sitting in here listening to his own team was bad, then he'd better figure out how to avoid setting foot in any other part of the building today.

          Luck was not with him, and Chris's idea of suitable punishment evidently included saddling him with piddling nuisance jobs that forced him to expose himself to the jeers of a variety of his ATF compatriots, both agents and support staff.  The boys on Team Eight actually pelted him with paper wads when he entered their bullpen.  He wondered which of his teammates had phoned ahead to give them enough time to prepare their little arsenal. 

          By the time mid-morning rolled around, he was heartily sick of hearing the words, "Great job", "Good show", "stupid," "dumbass" and even "Wilmington".  If he had had any sense at all, he realized, he would have called in sick today and told Chris he was keeping a low profile.  But then Chris would have given him a terse piece of his mind over the phone and a direct order to get his ass into work and start helping to clean up the mess he made.

          It didn't help to remember that Chris had yet to get back to him about how Buck was going to fix the problem, but Chris had promised, and sure as the sun rises in the morning, as soon as Chris had a plan in hand, Buck was going to get his orders. 

          _Great_ , Buck thought, on his way back up in the elevator.  _Something else to look forward to._

          Evidently, the team and Chris, in particular, were all well aware of the harassment.  And Buck had a small moment of satisfaction at the look of open-mouthed horror on Ezra's face when Chris ordered him to go with Buck on the next errand.  Ezra made to protest, but was stopped by the look on Chris's face and the team leader's outright smirk when he told Ezra that he could just as easily _pretend_ to work on his way to the crime lab and back.

          Ezra gave Chris a look that should have frozen the man solid and reached for his impeccably-tailored jacket.

          Buck suppressed a sigh and headed for the door, on one more useless fetching and delivering errand that would normally have been done by someone else delivering and picking up for the team.  He wondered how long Chris was going to make him the team errand boy.

          Ezra was no more pleased than he was, saying quite succinctly, for Ezra, as they departed the bullpen, "I may be forced to go on this little jaunt with you, but do remember that I am not your shield."

          Buck threw a dirty look at the back of Ezra's head, as Ezra stepped into the elevator ahead of him. 

          "Expect me to be long gone if they start throwing things," Ezra added sourly, stabbing at the elevator buttons.

          Buck thought suddenly of Team Eight and their little barrage, and this time he visualized the effective use of Ezra Standish both as defensive shield and offensive projectile.  The image made him somewhat happier for the rest of the elevator ride down to the parking garage. 

          They went in Ezra's car, since it was less recognizable and he had taken to parking in a whole other section of the lot, far, far away from anyone else on the team and from Buck's truck, in particular.

          It hadn't occurred to Buck that someone might take out their disdain on his beautiful little red cherry vintage truck.  After all, it wasn't like Lady had done anything wrong.  But still…

          He counted up one more potential consequence of his stupidity, one more innocent bystander on his conscience. 

          "Wipe your feet before you get in," Ezra demanded.

          Buck scraped the soles of his shoes against the concrete and tried very hard not to roll his eyes.

 

 

          Chris knew he couldn’t keep Buck out of range all day.  For one thing, eventually someone with clout was going to order Chris to produce Buck and do so immediately.  For another, he was going to run out of petty punishment errands and therefore out of places to send the man pretty damn quickly since their caseload had dwindled down to a trickle.  In fact, the whole team was in danger of running out of things to do when they finished dotting all the i's and crossing all the t's on their finished cases.  And, Chris had to admit, based on the paperwork crossing their desk this morning, they were all being unusually fastidious about it, rivaling even Ezra on one of his good days.

          He pushed a folder aside and leaned back in his chair.  He was going to have to come up with a suitable solution before someone higher up did.  Travis was giving him all the room he could to come up with something he could feed to the brass.  And if he failed to come up with something they'd accept, then they'd all be forced to accept their decision.  Chris didn't have a lot of faith that whatever the brass decided was going to be in the best interests of Team Seven.  The brass had much bigger concerns to deal with than one team's problems.

          He thought back on his discussion with Travis last night and their meeting this morning and mulled over his own conversation with Buck.  Then a thought struck him.  He didn't like it overly much, and Buck was going to absolutely hate it, which Chris merited as a plus at this point.  The brass, however would probably like it a lot, which could wipe a black smudge or two from the team's record, and possibly his own.

          He was interrupted by J.D. knocking hesitantly on his door.

          "J.D.," Chris acknowledged him.

          "Can I talk to you while Buck's out of the building?" J.D. asked.

          Generally speaking, it was not a good sign that J.D. had something he needed to say to Chris in particular and especially that he obviously did not want Buck to hear it.  The last time J.D. tried to resign.  Of course, that time he waited until _everyone_ else was out of the building.

          Chris kept his face perfectly neutral as he waved a hand toward the two chairs that sat opposite his desk.  J.D. sat down, and Chris was thankful at least that J.D. did not close the door.  At least this wasn't going to be something J.D. felt he needed to keep from the entire team.

          "What's on your mind?" Chris asked, putting aside his other problems for a moment and focusing his full attention on his youngest agent.

          J.D. looked at the floor, and Chris watched him fidget in his chair.  The kid seemed unable to decide whether to pull his feet underneath of him or stick them out in front, opting instead for one of each.  He stilled his hands by gripping the armrests.

          Chris looked at him blandly as if he had not noticed.

          "First I want you to know I appreciate all you've done…," J.D. started.

          And Chris interrupted him with another wave of his hand. 

          J.D., mouth, still forming his next syllable, stopped short and blinked at him. 

          "Don't thank me," Chris said tersely.  First off, he hadn't done a damn thing yet that was impressive enough to warrant being thanked and second, he didn't have a whole lot of time to spend beating around the bush.  Buck would be back soon, and he needed to lay out his ideas for Travis.

          J.D. seemed to be regrouping.  Apparently he had been practicing whatever it was he wanted to say, and being cut off in the preamble had him scrambling to pick up the next important thread.  The young agent inhaled, then exhaled and started again.

          Chris willed himself again to be patient.

          He was gratified when, this time, J.D. seemed to be getting straight to the point.

          "I'd like to make a statement," J.D. said.  He shot a glance at Chris almost fearfully, half expecting the team leader's head to explode.  But Chris was still looking at him, face as neutral as a sheet of printer paper. 

          "To the press," J.D. clarified, feeling his resolve and his words falter.

          There was still no loud, wet explosion, but Chris did narrow his eyes somewhat.  And J.D. resisting the urge to duck down in his chair, hurried on with his explanation.

          "I know you guys have gone to a lot of trouble to keep the press away from me.  And I know you've gone to a lot of trouble to get the brass and Travis to leave me alone.  Mostly."  He cringed when he remembered that it was Chris who called Lawford.  "And I never did thank you for calling a lawyer for me."

          "J.D.," Chris began.

          But there were things that needed to be said.  J.D. talked even faster.

          "I know that there's a civil suit pending and it's probably only a matter of days before I get my formal notice, and this isn't going to help."

          Chris's eyes narrowed a little more.

          "But," J.D. hurried on. "I want everyone who heard Buck call it a "little mistake" to know that it wasn't a mistake.  IA cleared me of wrong doing.  I didn't do anything wrong procedurally and those boys were all actively involved in committing an armed robbery and that the two who had guns shot first." 

          He hardly even dared to stop for breath now.  "But it wasn't "little" either.  I want people to know that we all think this is serious.  I don't want anyone to think that I wanted to kill those kids.  Or that I think they deserved to die."

          He stopped.  Because he had to breathe. 

          Chris's eyes were still narrow, but his head was now tilted slightly to one side.  J.D. knew Chris well enough to know that the team leader was thinking, but not knowing what he was thinking made J.D.'s throat go dry.

          "They were kids," J.D. said again.  "And, you know," he said shifting uncomfortably.  "Someone loved them."

          Which was why, J.D. knew, he was about to be sued. 

          He waited uncomfortably in the chair feeling like a kid sent to the principal's office and looked at Chris, who hadn't changed position except for his lips which were now slightly pursed.  The man was definitely thinking.

          When the team leader finally spoke, he spoke slowly.  "So you'd like to make a statement to the press about that?"

          J.D. nodded, cleared his throat and found his voice.  "Yes," he answered, trying to sound confident about his decision.

          The blond head straightened back up again.  The lips formed a crooked smile that had J.D. puzzled.

          "Okay," Chris said carefully

          J.D. stared at him.  "Okay?" he asked, trying to keep his voice from cracking.  "As in okay, go ahead?"

          The smile got a little wider.  "Not exactly," Chris answered wryly. 

          Chris picked up his phone and J.D. wondered whether he had been dismissed, but Chris looked right at him as he spoke to whomever was on the other end.  "Agent Dunne has a terrific idea." 

          The young agent was sure he detected a note of sarcasm when the team leader added.  "You're going to love it."

          J.D. couldn't quite catch what the person on the other end said before Chris hung up, and he couldn't see the information on the little screen on Chris's office phone either.

          The team leader folded his hands on the top of his desk and regarded J.D. intently.  "Go write out what you'd like to say," he said.  Then his voice took on a warning tone.  "Don't do anything else until I tell you." 

          J.D. had to wonder at the note of emphasis Chris put on the word "I" until it occurred to him that some other people in the building might have a whole lot to say about what and when and where and to whom J.D. might have to talk. 

          He had a sudden strange vision of walking in the dark through a quicksand filled-swamp.  And he willed himself to trust that Chris Larabee and Frank Lawford would know the way out of it.

 

 

          Assistant Director Orin Travis listened to the caller on the other end disconnect.  He wouldn't have answered it at that moment, except that the little LCD window told him that it was Larabee.  Travis knew Chris wouldn't be calling at all unless he had something vitally important to say.  At long last, it might be added. 

          Travis frowned at the phone before he hung it up.  Despite a very long list of cockamaimey, left field ideas that Larabee had come up with, Travis never expected to hear Chris say that this particular idiotic idea that Chris was coming up to see him about, was the brainchild of Agent J.D. Dunne.

          He didn't mention that to the director seated across from him.

          "He has an idea," Travis said blandly.

          "Is it any good?" Director Hofstader asked just as blandly.

          Travis shrugged.  "Was anything else we came up with?"

          "Good point," Hofstader agreed. 

          "Larabee is on his way up," Travis said.

          Hofstader pushed himself out of the chair.  "Call me with the details," he said as exited.

          A scant few minutes later, Deborah knocked on Travis's door.

          Chris stood behind her.

          "Come inside," Travis said tersely to Larabee and let every bit of his continued displeasure vibrate in his tone.

 

 

          Shana Morton shuffled around her kitchen, unable to concentrate on the act of simply making breakfast for herself and her mother.  Her mother had told her twice that she would do it, but Shana refused.  This much, this little task she would do.  She had woken up this morning in a world horribly and irrevocably altered, and was crushed under its weight, until some voice deep inside her told her this was the world now, and she had to get up and live in it. 

          The coffee was easy, but a mostly-empty box of Peanut Butter Captain Crunch nearly undid her.  The box blurred and swam.  She slammed the cupboard door shut and went to the refrigerator for yogurt, taking deep gulping breaths and staring into the brightly-lit interior.

          The television droned quietly from the tiny living room, where her mother had gone, banished for being unable to watch and not help.

          Toast seemed like a better idea than yogurt.

          She pushed the lever down on two slices of bread and went to find out if her mother would like jelly, but she stopped dead in the doorway to hear that voice again and see that man's face on the news, just like last night, when she heard him say so many times that the event that changed her life, the act that took away her Tyson and funny, baby-faced Kyle and Kyle's cousin Radim, whose idea it was, she was sure, was just a "little mistake". 

          "Little" he had said.  Insignificant, unimportant.  And a mistake.  Not even a big one.  Just a little oops to a man with a gun who could shoot down children without so much as a blink.  No fault.  No foul.

          The words, repeated and commented on by cheerful talking heads of complete strangers, stoked up the white hot furnace that sparked to life last night, spreading until it consumed the black hole in the center of her that had threatened to suck all life and light into it until she collapsed.  That dark well had vanished into the flames she fed for half a night, pacing up and down in her bedroom, having to tell herself and show herself again and again that Tyson would not be home tonight, until she finally succumbed and let her sobs, muted by his white pillow case, carry her into an exhausted sleep among the cluttered mess of his floor.  The fire was still there this morning and she sheltered it jealously, keeping it alive, until this man's voice sent it roaring up into her head and all she heard of the voice was a distant buzz. 

          Pain in her right hand let her know how hard she was gripping the doorway.

          She reached into the pocket of her jeans, realizing she had not changed clothes since yesterday and she pulled out the bent card of the lawyer.  She stared at it.  Then crushing it hard in her grip, she went to the phone.

 

 

          Gerald Gillingham, esquire, awakened that very morning feeling that both the sun and fortune were smiling fondly down upon him.  He slept late, took a leisurely breakfast with a cup of exceptionally good freshly-ground gourmet coffee, and read through the paper with great satisfaction, paying particular attention to the headlines.  His broad grin only got broader as he watched the morning news shows replay the inflammatory comments from ATF Agent Buck— _Who calls himself that?—_ Wilmington, thus assuring the flames would still be riding high this morning, the very flames which fanned his surge to the pinnacles of his profession.

          He wasn't sure why Shana Morton, single mother of a child killed unnecessarily by an unfairly imbalanced power structure, had been so singularly hard to convince to just sue the nameless faceless entity and its careless representative for the unimaginable pain and suffering of a parent who lost a child.  After all, Paige Bester got Kierra Lebec right on board and the Lebec kid had actually had a gun and fired it at said representative in the course of committing a robbery.  In comparison, the Morton case should be a slam dunk.  The kid was unarmed and, despite the inconclusive video evidence, Gillingham was fairly certain that he could make a jury, if he could get one, believe that the boy was running away.  Still, Morton's mother was reluctant.  At least while her boy was alive.

          Now she was the single mother of a murdered child.  And he was pretty certain that the ATF agent's callous comments last night had ignited enough righteous maternal rage to push the woman's case right through.  Gillingham knew he had prepared and fertilized and seeded the ground well.  Now he would wait for her to come to him.

          There was a definite spring in his step as he arrived at his office.  He greeted his secretary brightly as he picked up his messages, relishing that one of the perks of having one's own practice was not having to answer to anyone else.  He congratulated himself for his prescience when he saw right on top of the stack of hastily recorded notes, a phone message from Shana Morton.  He plucked the note happily from the stack happily and enjoyed the confirmation, once again, that he really was that damn smart. 

          A message from Cyril D'Aprix darkened his mood temporarily.  That man was a pain in the ass, pure and simple.  Gillingham was not sure he wanted to be the city's newest star civil rights lawyer.  He'd deal with D'Aprix's Community Action League later.  They couldn't afford him anyway, and he wasn't about to do pro bono.  Pro bono work was supposed to pay for itself by adding to the Gillingham name-brand.  There was no benefit to him on a case that would likely be long and drawn-out and not very lucrative. 

          Morton's case on the other hand, he could well afford to take, waiving his fees for what would surely prove to be a more profitable share of the award when he won and a nice improvement in his brand equity and reputation.  As soon as he had her verbal agreement to proceed, he could begin expediting the paperwork—which he had already begun in anticipation of the moment. 

          "Thank you," Gerald said, beaming his secretary his winningest smile.  Then he disappeared into his office, whistling faintly.

 

 

          Walter Brennerman, Investigative Supervisor Second Class with the Crime Scene Unit was not a forgiving sort, as Buck and Ezra were both finding out.  In addition, he had a long memory.  Buck was chagrined enough to recognize the man as the Senior Site Supervisor from the convenience store, the site he had insisted on personally going over with a fine tooth comb to look for the gun that they all now clearly realized Tyson Morton never had.  He was the very same site supervisor who voiced his complaint, in person, with Travis.  Looking back on it now, Buck was sure that Chris really enjoyed having to answer for that one. 

          Brennerman evidently also recognized Ezra as the agent who had taken Buck away from the site, so they could close down the scene.  Unfortunately, that didn't buy Ezra any brownie points either, largely because of a short string of two or three other incidents, vaguely alluded to under Brennerman's breath, where Ezra or Buck or someone else on the team had screwed up Brennerman's perfect professional environment.  Today's errand, picking up duplicate copies to double-check the test results and bring back evidence bags from a case they all thought was closed months ago, just to make the DA's office happy, was not going to put Buck back on the man's Christmas card list.

          While Brennerman combed through carefully color-coded and neatly labeled case files, Buck looked at Ezra and shrugged apologetically. 

          Ezra busied himself by looking around at the man's office, which was very, very gun metal gray from the standard issue desk to the industrial shelving.  Even the stapler was the same dull gray.  And, if one could believe it, the office contained even fewer personal items than Larabee kept in his own office. 

          There was a prominently displayed set of diplomas and certificates, however, that Ezra read through at his leisure.  Apparently, Brennerman had some justification to be proud of his academic accomplishments.  In fact, he was quite good at his job.  Just, Ezra considered charitably, a little one dimensional. 

          Handing Buck a thin hanging file folder, Brennerman then led the way to a storage area containing evidence boxes, again color-coded, indexed, and carefully filed away.  Using the folder as a guide, Brennerman seemed to have no trouble making his way among the boxes to find the case he sought.

          Ezra and Buck stood at the head of the aisle and looked at each other impatiently.

          It took only a few minutes for Brennerman to find what he wanted, which he shoved into Buck's arms with a stern admonition involving several technical terms and lengthy and specific instructions, which Buck tried very hard to digest.  He looked at Ezra.

          "I'm certain the DA's office will return it in exactly the same good order in which it is delivered," Ezra drawled out, and turned on his heel before Buck could ask him to carry anything.

          "Have the department assistant make copies of the file for you.  You can leave the folders with the originals with him," Brennerman instructed.  Then he followed both Ezra and Buck up the hall, evidently to make sure they followed his instructions.  And he really was making extra sure because he gave the same instructions to the department assistant, just so no one goofed it up.

          Out on the sidewalk again, Ezra looked at his watch, finding it difficult to believe that only an hour had passed since he and Buck left the office.  Apparently, he observed, time moves more slowly in the bowels of hell.

          Ezra's phone rang.  Larabee.  _Oh joy!_   He thought sardonically.

          "Yes we are," Buck heard Ezra say.  He watched the southerner mouth the word "Larabee" unmistakably.  It was followed by, "Yes we did."

          Buck rolled his eyes.  What now?  Fetch coffee?  Wash the boss's car? 

          Whatever Chris said on the other end of the phone made Ezra's eyebrows shoot up in surprise.  "Oh," he said, looking faintly relieved.  "I'm on my way."

          "Where are we going?" Buck asked.

          "Well," Ezra said.  " _I_ am going back to the federal building and the bullpen so Nathan and I can walk Kitty from the DA's office through this lovely evidence we gathered one more time—and slowly," Ezra said. 

          Buck narrowed his eyes.  "Where am I going?" he asked suspiciously.

          Ezra's grin was not particularly nice.  "You, my disgraced friend, are going to meet our boss over there in the park."  He pointed to a small city green space just up the block.  "He'll be the tall blond man in the black duster."

          Buck groaned.  _Fuck._ A private conference far, far from the federal building could not be good.

          "Did he say why?" Buck asked.

          Ezra's grin got even wider and hell if he didn’t look like he was really enjoying the joke.  "He didn’t say."  Ezra drawled thoughtfully, "But then it's probably all very top secret.  You know 'I'd like to tell you, but I'd hate to have to kill you'." 

          Buck glowered at him.  It was not a good imitation.  To begin with, it wasn't like he said it all the time.  And when he did, he was certain that he did _not_ sound like that. 

          An all-too-familiar Ram truck appeared at the far end of the park, slowly cruising for a parking spot.

          "Look!  There he is now!" Ezra said happily, until Buck shoved the whole pile of evidence, folders and all into his arms.

          Buck tucked his hands into his pockets and headed resignedly up the block toward the park. 

          "Don't forget your code book and your decoder ring!" Ezra called after him, heading off toward his own shiny car.

          Buck sent unkind thoughts toward Ezra and fervently hoped a flock of pigeons christened both Ezra's prized vehicle and his head.

          By the time Buck got to the park, the Ram had found a parking spot and its driver had climbed out.  Making no attempt to shorten the distance between them, Chris simply leaned against his driver side door and waited like he had all the time in the world.  On principle, Buck refused to hurry, but he didn't exactly dawdle either.

          "Hey," Buck said by way of greeting, once he got within hailing distance.

          Chris nodded and motioned with his head toward the passenger side of the truck.

          Buck climbed in.  "What are we doing?" he asked suspiciously.

          "Wasting time," Chris said.

          Under ordinary circumstances, he might have offered up a suggestion or two about better ways to waste time.  And under ordinary circumstances, Chris might have taken him up on one of his milder suggestions.  But nothing about today was ordinary and Chris's face was far too tense for making jokes about three martini lunches or fat steaks.  Instead, Buck just frowned at him.

          Chris's phone rang.  He checked the caller id and put it back on his belt without answering it. 

          Now Buck really frowned at him.  "Are we wasting time or hiding?"  Buck asked.

          Chris rolled his eyes over to the side to look at Buck.  "We're temporarily unreachable."

          Buck's phone rang.  He yanked it automatically from his belt, and Chris's hand whipped it right out of his grasp.

          "Don't answer that," Chris said.  Unnecessarily, since Buck no longer had possession of it to answer.

          He wasn't sure he liked this game.  It wasn't at all like Chris to make himself unreachable.  Although, Buck considered, it was exactly like Chris to make one of his men unreachable, especially when one of them had really screwed up and Chris was keeping him far away from angry supervisors that might want to take matters into their own hands.  Like today, for instance, he thought with another twinge of guilt.

          Chris's phone rang again.  He layed it on his knee but still didn’t answer.

          Buck wondered whether "wasting time" in a parking lot was Travis's way of making Chris unreachable.  Because that couldn't be good.

          Like he'd read Buck's mind, Chris answered Buck's unspoken question, a trick which Larabee did with disturbing frequency.  There was much in Buck's mind he didn't particularly want to have read.  Least of all by his boss.

          "Travis needs some time." 

          As explanations went, it was typically lacking in detail.

          "For what?" Buck asked.

          "To keep you from getting suspended and to sell his bosses on another plan," Chris said from between his teeth.  He'd never much liked having to explain.

          "What's the other plan?" Buck asked, wondering if he really wanted to know, if this plan required he and Chris disappear to where no one could yell at them or call them on the carpet or even ask them any questions.

          Chris turned and gave him the kind of smile that told Buck he wasn't going to like what came next.

          "J.D. would like to make a statement to the press," Chris answered, his smile turning decidedly twisted.  "Distancing himself from the unfortunate comments made last night."

          Buck cringed and leaned away as the smile bent itself higher. 

          "Wouldn’t you like to do the same?" Chris asked, his even tone the exact antithesis of the nasty gleam in his eye. 

          _I'd rather be suspended,_ Buck thought, looking out the window at the suddenly very interesting green landscape. 

          Wisely, he kept his thoughts to himself. 

 

 

          By the time it was safe to tell Larabee to come out of hiding and to bring Dunne and Wilmington back from wherever he had managed to conceal them away, Orin Travis thought his head might explode. 

          First there had been the bloodthirsty look in the chain of command's eyes.  Wilmington had bloodied the Bureau's nose, and they were itching to hit him right back.  Orin had argued vehemently that suspension was not a smart course of action.  Wilmington's comments, however inappropriate, were not given in an official capacity.  He was off duty.  And they did not relate to his ability to perform his job.  In addition to which, Travis growled out, he was certain he could find a number of agents right in the building who would support the gist of Buck's message.  Suspending Wilmington for his comments would continue to make everyone involved look bad, including J.D. Dunne, Team Seven, and any agent who happened to agree that Dunne did nothing wrong, which was official, post-investigation fact. 

          Still, they couldn't stand by and do nothing.  They couldn't sweep it under the carpet or stuff their fingers in their ears, hide their eyes and pretend it never happened.  The piper had to be paid.

          And Travis worked like a demon to negotiate the terms. 

          It had been a tough sell.  Not to PR, of course.  They loved the whole idea of speaking to the press and their little eyes lit up with undisguised glee to hear the bonds were to be loosened on their tied hands and their gagged mouths and they were going to get the chance to help carefully craft appropriate speeches.  The director, of course, managed to put on his "This is a grave matter" face and to make sure everyone knew how vital it was to work together and, most especially, to give credence to the particular expertise all those involved would bring to the table.  Everyone in the room read that clearly as "Let PR do the talking because look what happens when we let untrained people stand in front of the cameras."  It was all Orin could do not to roll his eyes, but he managed because there was no getting around the fact that they did need PR's expertise, since there was no way anyone was going to let J.D. Dunne or Buck Wilmington or Chris Larabee present anything to the press that had not been thoroughly vetted.

          The only question still on the table was whether the press were going to get to ask any questions.  On the one hand, the chain of command was naturally much more comfortable carefully controlling exactly what the press—and therefore the  masses in the community and beyond—got to hear.  On the other hand, as PR rightly pointed out, if the idea was to demonstrate that the agents involved actually did have some kind of compassion for the communities they served, some squeaky clean representative of a faceless government agency was not going to be nearly as effective in shaping public opinion as putting the faces of the agents out there to speak for themselves.  Orin was just waiting for them to stop beating around the bush and start talking about the dangers inherent in putting any of these particular three agents in a room filled with press and cameras.

          Happily, one question that mollified all concerned, except maybe Orin himself, was a rather sneaky and underhanded way to control the press in the room.  If Mary Travis was sincere in the regret she had expressed at the role she played in last night's fiasco story, then she could help fix the problem, too.  They would certainly fill the room, so there would be no complaints, but they could use Mary to manipulate who was invited and who was not.  After all, there was only so much room.  Orin couldn't answer for Mary but he did clearly hear the guilt-by-virtue-of-family-ties heavily implied in the tone of the suggestion, not to mention several meaningful glances thrown at his head.

          Chris Larabee was going to owe Travis big.  That much was very clear.  And he swore he wouldn't hesitate to take it right out of Chris's hide later.

          He picked up the phone as soon as Deborah had seen the last man out the door. 

          "Tonight," Travis growled through the handset at Larabee.  Before any official filing of a lawsuit made the waters muddier and more difficult to navigate.  Too late for the regular early evening news broadcasts, but early enough for the later broadcasts and evening and morning editions of newspapers.  As PR was quick to point out, timing was very important.

          "You will be at the table with both your agents," Travis added.  It had not been easy to get anyone to agree to that, but Travis knew that Larabee might abhor the press, and it was true that he had been known to let his agents bear the cost of their own stupidity from time to time, but when it came right down to it, he would never let them hang themselves out in the wind without being right there to pull them back in once they'd paid the bill.

          Still Chris didn't sound exactly happy at the pronouncement.

          "And," Travis said, overriding anything Larabee was about to say, and enunciating each syllable clearly and precisely, so there would be no mistaking his instructions, "You aren't to utter a single syllable, clear your throat, cast death glares, or make faces at any member of the press at any time."

          Travis interrupted Chris's intended reply.

          "A representative from PR will be sitting at the table with all of you.  If anything needs to be uttered, cleared, glared at, or made faces at, she will do it herself.  Have I made myself clear?"

          Silence was the answer.  Like the idiot was actually thinking about it. 

          Travis did roll his eyes now, purely as an alternative to taking the phone receiver and banging it repeatedly on the top of his desk in the hopes that some kind of sense would penetrate Larabee's rock hard head.

          He wondered if he should clarify that the words were an order, not an idea, suggestion, guideline or proposition.  He wondered if he really needed to tell Chris flat out it was this or the brass and PR would take Larabee's two agents and run with the show all by themselves.  And nobody up there really gave a rat's ass whether J.D. Dunne got to clear his sullied name or not. 

          Then Chris answered, "It's clear."  He said the words, but the tone of his voice did little to inspire confidence, and Travis briefly wondered whether he shouldn't extract from the man an iron-clad promise that he understood the terms and would actually abide by them. 

          _Certainly that would make a whole lot of people feel better,_ Travis thought.

 

 

          Vin didn't look up when they came in.  For all intents and purposes, he was still carefully studying the schematics and specs he had laid out on his desk.  Only his eyes moved, to watch through the hair that fell across his forehead, as Chris and Buck came into the bullpen together.

          Chris was in front.  Buck was a step or two behind.  They didn’t speak to each other.  Neither one of them looked particularly happy, and Buck's scowl was directed quite clearly at Chris's back.  They parted company at Buck's desk without a word exchanged.

          Vin cast a look from the corner of his eye at Josiah, whose blue eyes twinkled back at him. 

          Vin supposed that if he asked, Josiah would probably be able to explain what it was that changed, why something knotted up in the atmosphere of the room seemed to loosen and make it easier to breathe.  Hell if he knew.

          He shrugged it off and went back to considering whether the new sniper rifle he had been looking at would be worth the investment or not.

 

 

          Gerald Gillingham propped his legs up on his polished wooden desk, careful to avoid scuffing either his shiny Armani shoes or the wood.  His hands were folded comfortably across his belly, within easy reach of the congratulatory glass of Dewars that sat on a coaster by his elbow.  He was watching the flat screen TV set discreetly behind a panel in his office and happily thanking circumstances, fate, lady luck, and his gift of good timing.

          He had, of course, returned Shana Morton's phone call, remembering to express his deep concern and sympathy first and then to tell her she clearly had a lot to think about and he just wanted her to know that if she needed help making any arrangements, he would happily arrange for any number of helpful people to assist her.  Then he waited for the moment when he heard the gratitude in her voice and told her very casually that he understood how much she had on her mind, and he wouldn’t bother her anymore except to say the paperwork for the lawsuit was filled out and ready to file as soon as they had her signature.  They'd be in his office whenever she was ready. 

          Just as he had known she would, she rode the wave of grief and righteous indignation right into his office to sign the papers that very afternoon. 

          And now Gillingham was sitting and watching the six o'clock news, as was his habit, and admiring his good fortune and his foresight. 

          The polished ATF speaker repeated very succinctly that the findings of internal affairs quite clearly indicated that, although the loss of lives is always regrettable, Agent J.D. Dunne acted according to proper law enforcement standards and bureau procedures. 

          Gillingham shrugged.  This didn't concern him overly much.  Blah, blah, blah, he thought.  That's what the community would hear.  That's what PR divisions were for.  That was their job.  No one would put great stock in the words.

          Agent Wilmington gave him a moment of concern by not acting the buffoon that Gillingham had characterized him as, based on his baldly stupid statements in front of the camera only yesterday evening.  The agent's statement consisted entirely of an apology to his teammate and to the public and to the families of the deceased for his poor choice of words.  And that he did not characterize Agent Dunne's actions as a mistake.  Nor did he think the loss of life was a small matter.  More carefully crafted public relations work.  The words didn't worry Gillingham much. 

          What worried him was the way the man tugged on his collar, the way he tried to catch Agent Dunne's eye, the way he stumbled over his words and pointedly didn't have a paper in front of him to read from.  It all combined to make the man look sincerely chagrined and uncomfortable. 

          Then Wilmington looked over at the blond man that sat to his right:  Agent Christopher Larabee, according to the caption on Gillingham's screen.  Wilmington's and Dunne's boss, he knew.  Larabee's eyes flicked to the PR person, who promptly introduced Agent Dunne.

          If he had not already had the papers signed and sent for filing, Agent Dunne would have given him pause.  Gillingham had planned on strategically playing up Dunne's youthful appearance to characterize him as cocky, brash, and inexperienced.  Dunne evidently knew how to play his appearance, too.  He fixed soulful hazel eyes on the camera and said not a word to defend his conduct.  Instead he simply said he wanted to distance himself from Wilmington's statements, at which Wilmington flushed red.  Dunne went on to say plainly and with far too much compassion to help Gillingham's lawsuit that this was never a small matter to him, and he was sure everyone could agree that the deaths of young people is always tragic, no matter your point of view. 

          And, damn him, Dunne somehow managed to sound like he really meant it when he said his heart went out to the families involved. 

          Gillingham took a drink and scowled at the TV.

          He was going to have to do some work to spin Dunne's statement to his advantage, unless he could think of a way to exclude it from the evidence, which would be hard, seeing as it was a matter of public record.  Ah well, if he couldn't go with cocky and arrogant, there was always youthful inexperience.  That might even play better, make Gillingham himself seem more sympathetic to all the parties involved.

          He took another gulp. 

          On the TV screen, hands suddenly sprang into the air.

          Larabee looked pointedly at the girl from PR, who brightly informed the assembled press that Dunne would not be taking any questions.

          Wilmington folded his hands on the table top and took a deep breath.

          Evidently, Gillingham thought, as the first volley of questions shot out into the air, Wilmington was fair game.

          He watched with some interest, but it was clear that beyond Wilmington's statements the other night, he had no other involvement in the case and after hearing the man repeat himself a dozen times that he regretted the words he had chosen, that he regretted anything he had said that might make his teammate or the ATF look unprofessional, that the ATF, like all law enforcement, exists to protect the innocent, and it is regrettable whenever someone is hurt or killed no matter which side of the fence they are on, and that he would be a person wholly without a heart to not realize the pain the families of those boys were in right now, and that he was sorry if his words had added to their pain, Gillingham fervently wished that the press would stop asking questions because they were ruining his plans. 

          Then he got his wish.  Larabee looked at the PR rep, and she got up and told everyone it was time to go, and by the time she was done with the statement, Larabee had maneuvered both Dunne and Wilmington right out of the room. 

          Gillingham scowled into his glass, but only for a moment.  All was not lost.  He might have a harder time putting Dunne into a bad light now, but public opinion was still running high.  He would just have to get his case into court faster.

          He kept a nice collection of strings he could pull in his desk drawer just for this reason.  He opened an old address book, polished up his charm, and went to work. 

          Damn but he loved the strategy in his profession. 

 

 

          Out of camera range, out of earshot, Buck glowered at the back of Chris's head all the way from the ad hoc press room to the elevator. 

          Chris stood scowling at the inside of the elevator doors and wishing he could knock the pair of heads behind him together, hard. 

          He could damn well feel Buck glowering at him back there, and he could actually see J.D. reflected fuzzily in the mirror, still scowling at Buck. 

          Buck, who fucking opened a vein back there when he decided at the eleventh hour that two prepared statements was a little too damned prepared.  And swore up and down that this time he'd be professional, and circumspect, and even diplomatic—which Chris wished he'd thought of before his first impromptu press conference. 

          And Chris relented and said yes and fought about it with PR.  Because, goddammit, after all these years he ought to have a little faith in the man.  He shouldn't have been surprised when Buck came through.  Of course he came through.  It was J.D.'s reputation at stake. 

          "Did you get what you wanted?" Chris finally asked.

          He saw J.D's muzzy silhouette startle and shrug. 

          "Those kids are still dead," J.D. said morosely.

          "You didn't expect a press conference to change that, did you?" Chris asked, turning to look at his agent. 

          "At least people will know now that I'm not a child-killing monster," J.D. retorted, sending another glower at Buck. 

          Buck opened his mouth to protest, but the sudden narrowing of Chris's eyes stopped him.

          "Everyone who knows you, already knows that, J.D.," Chris said, his voice quiet and hard.  "And the rest of the world will believe what they choose to."

          "I did my job," J.D. said bitterly.

          "Yes, you did," Chris agreed, eyes never leaving J.D.'s face.

          "And my lawyer says I'm probably going to get sued anyway," J.D. finished sourly.

          "Which doesn't have anything to do with Buck," Chris pointed out.  "You did your job.  You stopped a couple of kids from committing an armed robbery and harming an innocent storekeeper and those kids died for their poor choices.  That was their choice.  Not yours.  You remember that."

          "I—" J.D. started, but he didn't get to finish his sentence because Chris wasn't finished.

          "And you remember this press conference," he said.  "Because Buck made his choice, too."

          Buck flinched but Chris ignored him.

          His eyes glittered like green frost in the elevator lights as he told J.D. flat out, "PR liked your statement a lot, and it probably played well out to the public, but you have a friend here who will back your play any time day or night and get his fool self killed to keep you safe.  He embarrassed himself and you in protecting you," Chris snapped.  "And he was willing to embarrass himself a second time to protect you again."

          It was J.D.'s turn to flush deep scarlet.

          "By my count, you've both embarrassed each other in public.  So you're even," Chris snapped at both of them.  "And I've had enough of this press conference shit to last the rest of my life," he grumbled as he turned away and resumed glowering at the doors.  Reflected there, the rippling figure of Buck, not surprisingly, was the first to extend a hand toward J.D.

          "Shake?" Buck asked.

          J.D.'s wavy reflected arm went out to meet Buck's.

          And Chris felt a certain degree of satisfaction at the awkward "sorry's" behind him, which were followed shortly by muttered and mumbled "me too's". 

          When the door opened again on their floor, Chris watched the two of them walk up the hallway next to each other, nearly shoulder to shoulder and knew they'd eventually get back to normal, which was good because if J.D. got sued, he was going to need the support of his friends, and despite the urge to still kick Buck's ass on principle, Chris knew damn well that there weren't a whole lot of people who would throw down for their friends the way Buck did.  Even when it was stupid.

          His thoughts were interrupted when Buck stopped halfway up the hall, while J.D. went on ahead into the bullpen.

          _What now?_ He wondered as Buck turned back and stood blocking the hall, just waiting.

          "What?" Chris asked testily, closing the gap between them.

          "That was some nice stuff you said about me back there," Buck grinned. 

          "Good," Chris snapped.  "Now you can stop glowering at me like this is all my fault."

          "You made me do that press conference," Buck answered pointedly.  "That was your fault."

          "Please," Chris snorted, unimpressed.  "You fielded a few fucking questions.  You ain't bleeding."

          "Hell," he continued, sidestepping around Buck, who, annoyingly, fell into step beside him.  "I'd be surprised if you even make it to the news after tonight since all you had to answer for is your big flapping mouth."

          "I resent that," Buck said.

          What Chris's expression told him to go do with himself was all too clear and explicit.

          Buck grinned at Chris's back and followed him into the bullpen. 

 

 

          Shana Morton made her mama turn off the television and the radio, and she stopped answering the phone.  Everyone she knew and even some she really didn't seemed to be calling to tell her about the press conference on TV.  She did not want to watch.  She did not want to hear that man from the news face the camera and calmly say that what he said on camera was not what he meant.  In her experience, the words that tumbled out of a person's mouth first were generally the ones closest to how they really felt.  And it galled her to the core that the world would listen to him change his mind.  That he would get that second chance to save his reputation and his self image when there no second chance for Ty to tell anyone that he hadn't meant to be part of whatever Radim Taylor had dragged him into.  That he hadn't meant to be involved in a robbery. 

          She knew her child.  And how he disliked to cause other people pain. 

          And she most emphatically did not want to see the face of the man who took her child out of this world.  She did not want to hear his voice, let alone to hear him say that he didn't do anything wrong.  She knew what the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms said about procedures.  Right and wrong wasn't about procedures.  Like you could hide the black mark of taking human life behind "proper procedure".  She did not want to see the man.  She did not want to think of him as even having a human face. 

          She went to her room and closed her door, too angry to even speak and not willing to take it out on her mother, who could hardly walk anywhere anymore but had put herself on a bus and ridden through two days and a night to get here.  Instead she clenched her hands until her nails bit into her palm and let the hot tears flow silently down her face because she refused to sob out loud.   

 

 

          Josiah proposed that a visit to the Saloon would promote some much-missed team bonding and solidarity.  But J.D. said it would feel too much like celebrating, and he didn't think there was much here to celebrate. 

          Vin and Ezra stated that they deserved a drink after the week they'd all been through and left with Josiah.

          Buck slunk home with J.D. all contrite, how much of which was just for show, Chris wasn't sure.  But he didn't care either.

          Nathan's unusual silence concerned him though.

          "You all right?" Chris asked, plopping into Josiah's empty chair. 

          That earned him a sidelong glance and a short wait before Nathan turned toward him and took a breath. 

          Chris remembered then that Jackson wasn't one to mince words when something was on his mind.

          "J.D.'s my friend and teammate," Nathan said, "Same as the rest of you all."

          Chris nodded.

          "But I gotta be honest with you, Chris."

          Chris didn't expect anything less of the blunt and outspoken medic.  He didn't let his lips twitch upward at that thought. 

          "I'm not sure where my loyalties ought to lay here," Jackson said, laying it out on the line.  "I know J.D.  And I know that the skin color on those three boys didn't have anything to do with what happened."

          Chris did not reply. 

          Nathan continued.  "This kind of thing damages a community.  My parents spent their lives," he choked only slightly as he clarified, "gave their lives in the cause of civil rights and equal rights and giving people their dignity."

          "And I've spent a lot of time and money following in those footsteps," Nathan said.

          Chris knew Nathan's political leanings were well to the left of center, well to the left of the safe zone most law enforcement officers subscribed to.  He knew Nathan's willingness to lobby for changes and he knew Nathan supported more than one action group that other people would consider radical.  It was that way when he'd hired the man. 

          Nathan looked at him a long time.  "You know what they're going to make those boys out to be.  What they're going to do to those boys' names and reputations and memories to save J.D.'s career."

          Chris nodded.  He knew.

          "I can't agree with that," Nathan said firmly.  There was a challenge in his eyes.  Or maybe an expectation.

          "I wouldn’t expect you to," Chris said with a shrug.

          They looked at each other in the silence of the bullpen.  Then Nathan looked away, staring off into some unseen distance.  Chris waited, imagining he could hear the wheels turning in his medic's head.

          Nathan's tone held more than just a hint of sarcasm when he spoke.  "It's a dangerous mistake for y'all in the Bureau to think you understand the life out there in the 'hood.  'Cause you don’t," he said, staring Chris right in the eye. 

          Nathan Jackson was a far cry from anyone in the inner city, but he did come from a long line of dirt poor sharecropping folk in rural Alabama.  And his activist parents had seen to it that their children were educated and spoke like it.  When he had a mind too, the medic could pontificate as well as anyone.  It was always slightly jarring to hear his poor Alabama roots come out. 

          Chris didn't rise to the challenge. 

          Nathan wasn't done, though.  "At least," he said disdainfully, "the Bureau didn't have the gall to put some token black agent at the table in the press conference."

          Chris looked away from Nathan and pondered the wall opposite. 

          He didn't answer either of Nathan's points.  Instead, he asked, "Would it be different if they were three white boys?" 

          Nathan's eyes narrowed.  "Yes," he answered, voice vibrating with the intensity of his convictions.  "Because their lives would have been different.  And maybe Tyson Morton wouldn't have been painted with the same brush as his two friends."

          Nathan's eyes bored into him.  But he took his time to think about his reply.  Maybe Nathan was right.  Maybe he wasn't.  But they'd never know either way. 

          He didn't have a solution for that problem, but Chris was pretty sure he knew what Nathan was asking of him.

          "You feel the way you feel, Nathan," he said finally.  "Nobody expects you to change that.  Or to change what you believe."

          He got up out of the chair.

          Nathan wasn't ready to concede the conversation.  "Just so you understand my point," he said.

          Chris turned back toward Nathan.  "Like you said,  I probably can't understand.  Not really."

          He regarded Nathan.  "Is this going to be a problem?"

          Nathan's mouth pulled into a grimace.  But his return gaze was unflinching.  "I'm not sure."

          Chris had long ago learned to appreciate Nathan's frankness, especially when he wasn't going to like the truth. 

          A corner of Chris's mouth hitched upward.  "Until you figure it out, I'll just have to trust you."

          Nathan's nod wasn't agreement and it wasn't acceptance.  It was simple acknowledgement. 

          He watched Chris disappear out the bullpen doors and shook his head. 

          He had supposed that his divided loyalties would have posed more of a problem for a man who demanded the utmost in team loyalty.  He had almost wanted it to be.  At least then he could have had it out with someone else.  He was tired of the constant bickering between the voices in his own conscience. 

          He turned the conversation over in his memory.

          _Nobody expects you to change what you believe…_

          He'd come to the team with those same divided loyalties.  He'd had those loyalties when he started his law enforcement career and when he was hired onto Team Seven. 

          So, he reminded himself, he wasn't, in fact, any more or less loyal to the team, or to J.D., or even to his sociopolitical leanings than he had been yesterday, a week ago, or three years ago.  He still believed what he believed.

          Funny how Chris did that, reached through layers of bullshit and pulled out what was important.

          Nathan shook his head and powered down his computer. 

          It was like Josiah said: "To thine own self be true."

          Funny how Josiah could do that, too.  Of course, with Josiah, it helped if you understood the proper cultural, literal, religious and/or metaphysical references. 

          Nathan wasn't real sure that the rest of the team would be so understanding, particularly Buck, in full-on protective mode and focused on J.D.  He supposed he could fight that battle when it came to him. 

          Until then, what he believed was that the killing of the three boys was a terrible tragedy for a community that had suffered unnecessarily and that the agent who shot them was one of the best men he knew, a man who had acted in accordance with training designed to keep the public safe from criminal acts.

          He shook his head.  No conflict there.  Right. 

          He decided to leave off thinking about it any more tonight.

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

 

          Over the next few days, as press coverage dwindled and reporters drifted away to cover more pressing and immediate tragedies, scandals, and incidences of graft and corruption, Chris could almost watch the black clouds above J.D.'s head lifting. 

          After circling each other with uncomfortable wariness for three long days, during which Chris purposely avoided both of them to avoid the temptation to knock both of their heads together, J.D. and Buck were slowly finding their balance.  Little by little, J.D.'s sarcastic side reasserted itself.  And Buck, true to form, let it, not even attempting to get his own back, a patient and gentle target.  If he looked like he was enjoying a joke or two made at his expense, Chris could tell it was only because J.D. was the one who made them.

          Chris tried, really tried, not to act like he was just waiting for the other shoe to drop.  He repeatedly banished himself to his office, a team leader time out, as it were, since Buck told him privately over the hood of Chris's Ram out in the parking garage that if Chris was going to walk around looking like the Prophet of Doom, he could just keep it to his own damn self.

          But it was hard not to look like the Prophet of Doom, when he knew damn well that the Doom was coming and in what shape and form it would be when it arrived.  He wasn't really sure Buck had the right idea in encouraging J.D. to forget about all that, in letting him rise up out of the ashes only to be flung right back into the inferno.  There was a fight coming, and if Chris were in J.D.'s position, he'd want to be throwing up his fortifications and making preparations, not yukking it up like there was nothing wrong.

          He took another deep breath and went through the bullpen to the coffee maker, deciding that if Buck was so set on keeping the kid distracted, then he could deal with it when the real Prophet of Doom arrived in the bullpen door bearing little blue papers with official court seals on them.  Yup, if Buck was so damn sure he was right, then he could deal with the fallout. 

          It sounded good on paper anyway.  Chris knew himself better than that.  He knew he'd never be able to stay out of the fight, any more than he was really staying out of the way of Buck's ridiculous campaign of humor and distraction.  He cast a sidelong look at this particular phase of the campaign, which consisted largely of Vin and J.D. pointing and laughing hysterically at some file of dancing rubber chickens performing a can-can on Buck's computer screen.

          "Yuck it up, you two," Buck said with good humored disgruntlement. 

          Chris rolled his eyes and didn't bother to hide his sour look as he went back to his office and reminded himself how much he hated it when Buck played stupid. And that if J.D. was paying any attention at all, he would see that Buck was trying way too hard.

          He wondered when Buck had brought Vin onto the bandwagon.  Then again, maybe Vin actually thought that stupid video was funny. 

          Nathan and Josiah were not participating in the hilarious fun.  Nathan was probably still working on coming to grips with all the voices of his schizophrenic loyalties shouting out how he was betraying them.  Chris knew a little bit about what that was like.  He also knew Nathan was far more level-headed than most, which was both why he had conflicting loyalties and why he would eventually find a middle ground where his conscience could stand firm in the eye of the maelstrom.

          Chris suspected Josiah's reticence was born of a respect for Nathan's conflicted state and the fact Josiah knew as well as Chris did what was coming.  And unlike Buck, did not have the gift of shutting off his brain and engaging in willful and deliberate refusal to acknowledge the obvious.  No one could do deliberately obtuse the way Buck could.

          Chris considered that maybe he and Josiah were the only sane ones.  But, then again, there was Ezra who had been making himself fairly scarce since the idiocy had started up and who was, once again, conspicuously absent.  Maybe he and Josiah were the only sane ones, but clearly Ezra was the only smart one.

          If he had any sense, Chris determined, the next time he would find out where Ezra was going and go with him.

          But he wouldn't do that either, he knew.  Because he didn't have any sense, not really.  Chris knew he would remain right here in this office watching over the idiocy until that damn summons arrived or J.D. went home at the end of each day—whether Buck liked his tone or his expression or his face full of doom or not.  The truth was Chris couldn't help himself. 

 

 

          The appointed Messenger of Doom arrived on Wednesday afternoon shortly after lunch.  Chris and Ezra, consulting over a 3-D rendering of a map on Ezra's computer screen, looked up at the sharp rap on the bullpen doorframe.  Buck must have seen Chris stiffen.  He turned his chair to see the duly authorized, and freshly minted, officer of the court, clad in sneakers and a designer hoodie looking self-importantly into the bullpen. 

          Ezra shook his head almost imperceptibly and gave the boy a look that Chris recognized as pity.

          "Agent John Dunne?" the kid announced.

          Seven unblinking pairs of eyes looked at the fool.

          "Who wants to know?" Buck asked, his voice low and menacing, and even though he was looking at the back of Buck's head, Chris knew the man was smiling the kind of smile an alligator might give you before it bites both of your legs off. 

          "I'm an appointed officer of the court," the idiot recited, as if that would save him.  Clearly the dumbass was completely oblivious to both the crackle in the atmosphere and the exact nature of the smile on Buck's face. 

          Chris moved toward the door. 

          "I'm John Dunne," J.D. spoke up, honest and forthright and stupid as ever.

          Buck shifted his weight forward in his chair and Chris maneuvered himself into Buck's line of sight, fixing him with a glare that Buck well knew promised to rain all holy hell down on his head if he was dumb enough to mess with an officer of the court even just for fun.  Buck glared back at Chris as he let the kid pass and hand over the blue subpoenas under the baleful glower of a half a dozen pairs of eyes. 

          Perhaps the imbecile finally felt the temperature drop becaue he handed over his little blue papers in an awful hurry and all but backed out of the bullpen doorway, while the force of Chris's glare kept Buck pinned in his seat.

          Crestfallen, J.D. regarded the papers in his hand.

          He looked up at Chris, who seemed to be shooting eye lasers through Buck's forehead. 

          Then the green eyes flicked to J.D., and J.D. swallowed.  He willed his vocal cords not to let his voice tremble, or crack, or worst of all squeak.  "I need to go speak with my lawyer," J.D. said, the calm voice not sounding at all like his own.

          Chris nodded curtly.

          J.D. collected his gear and disappeared out the door.

          Buck muttered a few choice words that Chris couldn't quite catch, although he could take an educated guess.  He looked forward to the day when this was all over and Buck would pull his fat head out of his overprotective ass.  Chris only hoped when Buck finally did look around, he would see something besides the flaming wreckage of his own and J.D.'s careers.

          That thought made Chris grind his teeth together.  He reversed course and went back to Ezra's desk. 

          Ezra eyed the dark glower that crinkled Chris's forehead and suppressed a sigh of foreboding.  He wasn't sure why he should have to suffer?  After all, he had nothing whatsoever to do with either J.D.'s case or Buck's bad behavior.  It seemed entirely unfair for him to have to endure the effects of Chris Larabee's ill temper.

 

 

          Frank Lawford was honest and forthright, desirable qualities in an attorney, unless of course he was telling you news you didn't want to hear.  J.D. couldn't fault him for it, though.  He didn't suppose it would do anyone any good to sugar coat it.  As Frank put it, J.D.would need the facts to make an informed decision.  But as far as J.D. could see, either of the two roads put before him would lead only to further misery—for a whole lot of people

          J.D. wandered around Denver for a little while, driving aimlessly up and down streets until the irritated beeping of horns behind him made him realize how little attention he was paying to the road.  He needed to go someplace where he could think clearly and safely. 

          So he found himself back at the federal building, back in the elevator and then back in the hallway leading to the bullpen.  He had noticed the lights were still on, but he was surprised to find the team offices not quite empty.  He halted in the doorway.  And wondered why he had been so surprised. 

          Buck was there.  And so was Chris. 

          They must have seen him coming, or maybe the security guard had called up.  J.D. didn’t know, but there they were.  Buck swiveled in his desk chair to face him and Chris leaned in his office doorway.  Like parents waiting for their kid to come back from some late night party. 

          "What'd he say, kid?" Buck asked, his voice all soft and earnest.

          J.D. looked from his best friend to his leader and let out a long exhale.

          "It wasn't good," he said, trying like hell to form a smile to go with his ironic understatement.

          Buck and Chris just nodded, and without a word, Chris stepped aside.  J.D. went into Chris's office, Buck right on his heels.

          He sat down for what seemed like the hundred and fiftieth time in one of the hard wooden chairs parked in front of Chris's desk.  Buck dropped into the other one, right next to him, so close they nearly brushed shoulders. 

          Buck nodded at J.D. to go ahead.

          He didn't even know where to begin, but he opened his mouth and the words soon found a momentum of their own.

          Chris closed the door, even though there was no one around, seemingly for miles, but then Chris could be paranoid like that, and sometimes J.D. was grateful.  Chris  parked himself in front of them, on the edge of his desk, arms crossed and head down in evident concentration the entire time J.D. spoke. 

          He told them everything Frank Lawford had said:  That he could fight it.  He could settle.  Or he could countersue. 

          Frank informed him any action in court would almost certainly prove to be long, messy, ugly for everyone involved, expensive, and extremely public, given the press's recent interest in the story. 

          But settling would leave the stigma of blame on him because he would not have a chance to properly tell his side.  Instead, anyone who remembered or read about the case would be free to decide J.D.'s guilt for himself.  J.D. was pretty certain he'd been tried and found guilty already in the minds of large segments of the public. 

          Frank told him if he fought, he might salvage his professional reputation among law enforcement agents in general and a small segment of the public at large, but for the duration of the suit, his name and reputation would probably continue to be smeared.  And even if he won and was completely exonerated, news reports about it would likely be in a tiny spot somewhere on page eight.  Not splashed all over the headlines like it had been up until now.

          "No matter what, it's gonna suck," J.D. finished glumly.

          Buck grunted his agreement at that assessment.

          Chris, head still down, thought about the hollow tone that marred J.D.'s voice like a badly healed wound. 

          He looked up to see both J.D. and Buck looking at him.  Waiting.  Like they somehow expected him to know what to do. 

          Buck held his tongue and waited for Chris, expecting him to do what he did best:  Act out the part of the great leader J.D. thought Chris was and say something that would help the kid make sense of the crappy options and make the smartest possible decision.

          It was taking too long. 

          The kid was waiting.  And somebody had to say something.  So he jumped in.

          "Everyone here, heck everyone who's anyone in law enforcement, knows you followed proper procedures," Buck said.  "So don't worry about what the people you work with are going to think.  Especially us."  He punctuated his message with a sharp nudge to J.D.'s shoulder.

          Chris's eyes shifted toward Buck, but he still didn't say anything.

          "So you think I should just settle?" J.D. asked uncertainly.  He hesitated before asking, "Is that what you'd do?"

          Buck knew he was supposed to nod his head now.  Say yes.  Yes, he'd settle. 

          Chris wasn't surprised when he balked.  The blue eyes turned back up to him and demanded a little help.

          "That would probably be the smart thing to do, J.D.," Chris stepped in.  "It'll save you time.  It'll probably save you money in the long run.  And it'll make the whole thing go away that much faster."

          He didn't add that it would save everyone involved the agony of seeing those boys' reputations, questionable or not, dragged through the mud, and their memories forever tarnished in their final act of stupidity.  Lawford was a smart attorney.  He'd be a fool not to fight the suit by reminding everyone that Tyson Morton, Kyle Lebec, and Radim Taylor were in the act of committing a violent felony and that two of the boys fired on Agent Dunne.  He wouldn't be doing his job if he didn't color Tyson Morton in the same criminal shades.  But Chris wasn't at all sure that J.D. had the stomach for that. 

          His mind flashed back to an all-night vigil in a hospital room, the thick tension in the air, the still face of the child in the bed, the anguish on his mother's face, the way they both flinched when the ventilator stopped and the monitor let out one long endless tone, the way he held himself still in the chair as his own guts twisted up inside of him and wondered just what the hell he was doing there.  He wasn't sure he had the stomach to watch Lawford do that to Shana Morton either.  The wound was still too fresh. 

          Experience told him that, for her, that wound would stay fresh.  Maybe forever.

          He forced the thought from his mind and focused on J.D., who was looking up at him with solemn eyes.  And Buck's grim expression right next to him. 

          "Is that what you'd do, too?" J.D. asked Chris, almost reluctantly.  He wasn't sure what he wanted Chris to say. 

          He half hoped Chris would say yes, that he would settle.  Then J.D. could settle, and maybe he could pretend he didn't feel like a coward running away because that was what Buck and  Chris would have done, too.  And J.D.knew neither one of them were cowards.  They wouldn't run from a fight unless it was strategically the best option.

          Chris gave J.D. one of those too-long and too-knowing looks.  On a good day they made him nervous, like some kind of character x-ray.  _Assessing moral fiber and capability.  Please wait._  

          J.D. didn't look away.  There was nothing to hide anyway.  All the dirty laundry and conjecture and just plain wrong viewpoints had all been trotted out into the open, through the bureau chain of command and out in the press.  Everything he had said and done had been told, retold, assessed, picked at, exposed, taken out of context, put back into context, twisted around, re-ordered, nitpicked, and poked at until there just wasn't any more information to be found.

          Chris was more than aware that Buck was trying to telegraph him a message.  To tell him what he was _supposed_ to answer.  J.D. asked him a question and he deserved an honest answer.  But nobody was going to like it.

          "Probably not, J.D.," Chris said reluctantly. 

          Buck's eyes narrowed fractionally, clearly unhappy with Chris's choice.  But, Chris considered, Buck ought to know there was no right answer.  Just two very wrong ones. 

          "I'd probably fight it," Chris continued, ignoring Buck and focusing solely on J.D., who looked less certain now than he had when he had walked into Chris's office for the very first time a mere few years ago.  He had been brasher and cockier then, youthful, and filled with an amazingly naïve ignorance of what he was about to get himself into, and an unshakable belief in himself.  A lot of the shine had worn off now, revealing the metal the man was made of, strong and flexible, enduring, miraculously untarnished, and immensely valuable in a world like this one.

          J.D. regarded the floor and nodded like he understood.  But Chris knew he didn't.

          "I'd fight it," Chris said, uncrossing his arms and gripping the edge of his desk.  "It would probably cost me my life savings, my house, my reputation, a whole lot of friends, and quite possibly my career.  But I'd do it."

          He cocked his head over to one side and let his words sink in.

          "But then, I'm not as smart as you," Chris added softly. 

          J.D.'s eyes flicked upward to look at him and Chris held his gaze for a moment. 

          "What you choose is up to you," Chris said firmly.  "But we'll back your play no matter what you decide."

          His gaze took in Buck, who nodded in grim confirmation.  "No matter what," Buck added.

          J.D.'s shoulders slumped a little, whether in resignation to his fate or disappointment in their answers, Chris didn't know. 

          Then J.D. nodded silently as if answering a question for himself.

          "I guess I'd better give it some thought before I decide," he said, and Chris wasn't sure whether he was really speaking to either of them.

          "Take your time," Chris advised. 

          J.D. nodded again, and thanked both of them, but his mind was already elsewhere.

          The instant J.D. departed, Buck turned back to glare daggers at Chris.  "What'd you tell him that for?" he demanded.  "You know damn well if the 'great Chris Larabee' would fight the lawsuit then that's what J.D.'s gonna think he should do." 

          "At least I told him the truth," Chris pointed out, not flinching an inch as Buck leaned over him.

          "What's that supposed to mean?" Buck snarled.

          "You'd fight it, too," Chris snapped.  "You'd fight it until the money and the time ran out.  You'd fight it just as far as you could make it go.  And you know it."

          "But that's not what he needed to hear," Buck shot back, his voice raising several notches in pitch and volume and one hand pointing adamantly at the door through which J.D. had just disappeared.  "What the hell does it matter what you would really do?  What matters is what he _ought_ to do."

          "There's no right answer here, Buck," Chris reminded him, raising his own voice enough to get Buck's attention.

          "But there is a stupid one and a smart one," Buck said pointedly.

          "He's a smart kid," Chris answered.  He rose up to his full height and glowered back at Buck to drive his point home.  "And he'll make a smart decision.  No matter what he decides."

          Buck threw his hands in the air.  "You're unbelievable!" 

          There was clearly more that he wanted to say, but he only shook his head and uttered a guttural syllable of dismissal before stalking out Chris's door.

          Chris waited until Buck disappeared before he sat back down on the edge of his desk and ran a hand over his face. 

          Buck had wanted him to say that he would have settled because settling was the smart thing to do. 

          But it would have been a lie.  Settling probably was the smart thing to do.  But neither Chris nor Buck would have taken that option.  So how was Chris supposed to look J.D. in the eye and lie? 

          Keeping the truth from J.D. would be doing him a disservice.  He was a federal agent after all and a damn good one.  Was sheltering and protecting him just a way of saying they didn't trust and respect him enough to believe he could face up to his responsibilities like a man? 

          Or did the ends justify the means?  What _did_ it matter what Buck and Chris would really have chosen when the idea was to give J.D. good advice?  Buck would say that friends were supposed to help and protect each other.  That was the mission that mattered here—and Chris just flubbed it completely.

          Chris supposed there was no right answer to this either.  But if there was a stupid one and a smart one, damned if he could tell which one was which.

 

 

          J.D. had changed into workout clothes and was hauling his bike out of the back of his closet by the time he heard the door slam and the hailing voice Buck used to announce he was home.  Sweating and straining through the tricky maneuvers involved in retrieving an entire bicycle out from behind his shoes and sneakers and hanging clothes and through one end of the sliding closet door, J.D. did no more than grunt an acknowledgment that he doubted Buck even heard.  The handlebars got stuck on the inside of the nearest door, of course, and J.D. had to shove a set of Rubbermaid bins a little further to his left so he could get his shoulders into the closet far enough to unwedge the handle bars. 

          By that time Buck was standing in his doorway.

          "Need some help there?" Buck asked and J.D. wondered if he was only referring to the bike.  Of course, knowing Buck, if there was anything J.D. owned up to needing help with, the man would be right there, sleeves rolled up and ready to dive right in.  Wanted or not.

          "Nah," J.D. answered. 

          The bike came free and he wheeled it past the foot of his bed.  Buck stepped out of the way so he could get by, then followed up the hallway.

          "It's gonna be dark soon," Buck said, as J.D. strapped on his helmet.  He did a piss-poor job of disguising the concern in his voice.

          "I've got a headlight and reflectors and my cell phone," J.D. answered although he highly doubted that was quite the object of Buck's concern. 

          Buck shifted his weight and rubbed at the back of his neck.  "You want some company?" he asked.

          J.D. looked at him as he pulled on his reflective vest.  Buck owned a bike.  But J.D. could barely remember the last time they had ridden together.  "Do you even know where your bike is?" he asked. 

          Buck's grin was decidedly sheepish as he admitted that no, he was not entirely sure where his bike was.  It was in someone's garage.  He just wasn't sure whose.

          J.D. rolled his eyes just for show.  "Thanks for the offer," he said.  "But it's just as well."  He opened the front door and took the bike into the hall before he looked back.  "Some things a man's gotta do by himself."

          Standing in the doorway, Buck watched him carry the bike down the steps and out the security doors into the waning light of the afternoon. 

          J.D.'s words echoed in Buck's head.  And Buck knew he wasn't talking about the bike ride.

 

 

          J.D. took a wandering bike path that went through the outskirts of the city and then off into the countryside and toward some of the bordering towns.  Up hills and down.  He rode hard, the scenery blurring past him, and the wind ripping tears out of his eyes. 

          The sunset was sending its last liquid gold rays low across the landscape, and the pink edge of the sky was melting into a brown smudge across the horizon when he stopped.  He dismounted onto rubbery legs and staggered a few feet to plunk down onto the grass just above a glassy black lake, his chest heaving. 

          He watched a pair of ducks wheeling, nearly wing to wing, coming low over the water and then putting their web feet down like airplane wheels to carve a pair of white V's across the surface, as they scudded into the cattails at the water's edge and disappeared from view.  Birds called from trees on either side of him, and he noted that although his breathing was loud, his head was finally quiet. 

          He enjoyed that silence inside his skull for as long as it lasted.  It faded all too soon, as he knew it would, as the first nagging reminders crept slowly in.  He had a decision to make.  A decision that was going to affect his career, his name, his reputation, his whole damn life.  And worse yet, the lives of his friends, like an insidious web that would snare anyone who had any connection to those three boys or the unlucky agent who walked into that store. 

          He picked at the blades of grass.

          He knew he probably should countersue.  Threat of countersuit would up the ante and the costs for the complainant, and according to Frank, could very likely cause her to back down.  And sure, it made sense, he thought.  But he couldn't bring himself to make that choice.  He didn't have the heart to turn around and heap more trouble on a woman who had just lost her son.  Maybe he wasn't tough enough.  He tossed a handful of grass into a breeze.  More likely, he just wasn't mean enough.

          That left only two options.  Chris and Buck both said settling was more sensible.  But it felt like knuckling under to him.  And no matter what they said about smart, J.D. didn't believe for one minute that Buck would settle any more than Chris would.  Buck would fight and fight hard, just like Chris, right down to the mat, and damn the cost, just like Chris. 

          J.D. glowered at the ground.  Patches of old thatch and dirt were beginning to peek through the green where he had been plucking at the grass.  He threw another handful of blades into the breeze.  This time they blew back toward him.

          None of the people who really mattered to him, his friends back home, or his teammates here would think any less of him if he chose to settle.  Chris and Buck had said so.  But that was just confirming what he already knew.

          That wasn't the problem anyway.  The problem was that _he_ would think less of himself.  And he didn't know if he could live with that. 

          He wasn't sure that time and money or even a career all stacked up together measured up to the principle involved and the undeserved blot on his reputation and his good name. 

          He was reminded of poker. 

          He had a good hand.  Frank had told him so.  He had a very good defense if he was willing to risk the time and money and the heartache involved.  But it didn't guarantee the hand was a winner.  There was no guarantee for that.  He could call and walk away the winner, justified, with his head high, or the loser, his name forever smeared by people who just didn't understand what had really happened.

          Or he could fold and walk away the loser for sure, but at a much smaller cost in time and money.  And the pain of looking guilty would fade as soon as everyone forgot about it.  Maybe.

          No matter what he chose, the facts wouldn't change.  For anyone.  He would still know he hadn't done anything wrong.  His friends would still be his friends.  One store owner would still be alive and safe.  Three boys would still be dead.  He would still feel the weight of their deaths on his soul, and their mothers would still blame him.

          It all seemed so pointless. 

          To his left, a uniformed park employee stopped suddenly, startled to see him in the gathering dark.

          "Park's closing, son," the man said. 

          "I'll be on my way," J.D. answered, dragging his stiff limbs out of the grass and straddling his bike.

          The options thrummed through his head.  And they still sucked. 

          He was no closer to choosing among his equally bad options, when he finally dragged his bike back through his own front door.  Buck looked up from the TV and gave a nod of acknowledgment as J.D. wheeled his bike past and down the hall toward his room. 

          J.D. flopped onto his bed, sweaty clothes and all, without bothering to turn off his light.  Tomorrow was Saturday.  Frank suggested he take the weekend to make up his mind.

          Nope, he realized.  He was no closer to a decision, but at least he was exhausted enough to sleep.

 

 

          By Monday, J.D. had made up his mind.  He didn't know whether it was right or wrong, foolish or smart, but it was a decision.  There was nothing left to do but stand by it and follow wherever it led.  So he didn't stand around and second guess himself either.  He called and left a message for Frank Lawford.  Then he called Chris and told him that he was going to need some time off to speak with his lawyer and that he would let Chris know when that would be as soon as he knew. 

          He was momentarily surprised at Chris's terse "Let me know ASAP."  He stared at the phone a second before pocketing it again.

          Really, he wasn't sure how he had expected Chris to react.  Maybe something more like Buck, who hovered incessantly all weekend, all the while making a big show of how he wasn't actually hovering.  No, he was just choosing to stay home.  Like Buck really woke up this very Saturday and decided that it was high time he got started on four years worth of spring cleaning that had never been done.  Surely, he didn't really think J.D. was that stupid. 

          Probably not, J.D. sighed.  Knowing Buck, he just couldn't tear himself away from a friend in trouble and couldn't admit it either.

          Chris, on the other hand, was already in the office and working.  J.D. supposed it couldn't be easy to manage operations when one of his agents wasn't really sure when or if he was going to make it into the office today.  Or perhaps tomorrow.  Or maybe Wednesday. 

          Until Frank called back, he told himself, he'd better get in to work.  Maybe he could make up the time by working earlier or staying later. 

          "Let's go!" Buck hollered from the door. 

          "I'd better drive myself," J.D. said, coming out of his bedroom.  He waved his phone at Buck.  "I'm waiting for my lawyer to call me back with an appointment."

          Buck looked at him a long time. 

          J.D. fidgeted under the scrutiny.

          "You need me to go along?" Buck offered slowly.  "For moral support."

          "One of us has to work, Buck," J.D. said drily. 

          Buck shrugged.  "I've got days," he said.

          He probably did.  Probably a lot of them.

          It was tempting to have solid, supportive, and sometimes scary-as-hell Buck Wilmington backing his corner, but Frank Lawford was his ally not his enemy, and he needed to do this for himself.

          Plus, he seriously doubted that Chris would give Buck an unspecified amount of time off on an unspecified day to go to a meeting that really had nothing whatsoever to do with him just to provide moral support.  Although J.D. would have liked to see Chris's reaction when Buck asked.

          He gave Buck a smile that he really hoped looked self-assured as he declined the offer.

          Buck nodded, still scrutinizing him in a way that reminded J.D. all too much of Chris.  Then he turned and headed out the open front door.

 

 

          It turned out that Frank had an opening and could see him right away.  J.D. wondered whether that should make him feel better or worse.  He hadn't had time to shrug out of his motorcycle jacket.  Hadn't powered up his computer.  Hadn't had coffee.  Half of his teammates weren't even in yet, and he was hanging in Chris's doorway hurriedly excusing himself.

          Chris looked up from his computer, skewered J.D. right in the beams of his x-ray eyes, just like Buck had that morning.  But Chris didn't offer to babysit him.  Instead he just said, "Okay," and went back to whatever occupied his attention on the computer screen.

          With a pang of guilt, J.D. noticed seven crisp new manila folders fanned out on Chris's desk.  They were getting a new op. 

          Guess the PR disaster was all over, J.D. thought sourly.  All the people upstairs could congratulate themselves on getting through the whole mess intact. 

          Guess it was just J.D. Dunne's problem now. 

          He realized he was still standing in Chris's doorway when the team leader cocked an eyebrow at him. 

          "The sooner you go, the sooner you get back," Chris said pointedly. 

          J.D. pulled himself out of his musing.

          No subtle hint there.  _Get your ass back here ASAP._ He could read between the lines as well as anyone.

          "Yes, sir," he said briskly and hurried out the bullpen door. 

 

 

          It wasn't a long meeting.  It just felt like a long meeting, a long painful, protracted torturous strategy session.

          J.D. had told Frank that he wanted to fight this lawsuit that threatened to ruin his good name and his professional reputation. 

          Frank had nodded solemnly and told him to sit down.  There were a lot of options, apparently.  And Frank was well on his way through the tactical planning phase of J.D.'s defense.

          As he outlined their strategy, J.D. couldn't help but be impressed with Frank's preparation. 

          It must have shown on his face because Frank said, "I have a lot of experience with these types of cases."

          A big knot in J.D.'s stomach loosened. 

          Frank's strategy had several prongs.  Since J.D. did not want to countersue, the main strategy would be to make the suit too costly for the plaintiff to pursue.  That included dragging it out until Shana Morton's high-priced lawyer got worried about all the money not coming into his wallet while he worked on this high-profile but largely pro bono case. 

          It also included an emotional price tag.  Frank meant to paint Tyson Morton in as believably unflattering terms as possible.  Shana Morton was suing because of the painful loss of her son, and painting her child as a thug, a criminal, a gangster involved in a violent crime on innocent citizens, a person who hung out with violent armed criminals, might just be more than she could bear.

          J.D.'s stomach rolled at the thought of it, but he pulled himself together.  Suing had been Shana Morton's choice.  She would have to live with the consequences of her own actions, just like J.D. did.  He needed to concentrate on himself now. 

          He ignored the queasy feeling in his stomach and the part of his conscience that found the idea appalling, and nodded at his lawyer. 

          They began to discuss financial terms.

          And so, the fight was begun.

 

 

          Gerald Gillingham, esquire, sniffed disdainfully.  Looked like the defense's plan was going to be perfectly predictable right on down the line.  As far as he could discern, his opposing attorney wasn't even particularly creative.

          Having anticipated this very tactic, he was certain it could be overcome relatively easily.  Even now, he had investigators out, as far as New York City and Boston, digging for whatever dirt they could find on Agent J.D. Dunne.  He knew there was some out there.  Everyone had dirt somewhere in their past.  And he would use it to his full advantage.

          "Not to worry," he said confidently to his client, who was sitting across from him at his shiny wooden table.  "We anticipated this very tactic.  It's the standard response, really, and we know exactly how to get around it."

          She stared at him. 

          Perhaps she didn't understand.

          "As they say," he rephrased.  "Fight fire with fire."

          Her eyes didn't move from his face, and she didn't blink.

          He wondered if there was something not quite right about her, something he ought to be aware of--although his investigators were usually quite thorough.

          "I'm absolutely certain," he said slowly and distinctly, "that we can find enough information on Agent Dunne to damage his reputation and therefore his credibility."

          He blinked once because watching her unblinking gaze made his eyes itch.  He refrained from sighing.  He put it even more simply.  "If we make him look stupid or make him look like he doesn't really know how to do his job, it will make it harder to believe his story about the events of that afternoon."

          He attempted a warm and paternal smile.

          Her eyes narrowed a little.  Like she was trying to understand something.  That was good.  Maybe she got it after all.

          "You just leave everything to me," he said with his winningest smile.  "I know exactly what I'm doing."

          But Shana Morton shook her head. 

          He was a little taken aback.  What did she mean by shaking her head?

          He gave her hand a comforting pat.

          She jerked it away from him.

          She reached for the papers sitting on the table in front of him.

          He got over his surprise quickly enough to grab the papers out of her reach.

          "I want to know what they say," the woman said curtly.

          He looked down at the paper he was clutching and loosened his grip immediately.  He smoothed the edges and slid them far away from her. "Now don't you worry," he said soothingly.  "I know exactly what to do.  You just trust me."  He tried the smile again, and was a bit perturbed when she was not placated.

          This time, she was the one who spoke slowly and distinctly.  "What do those papers say about my son?"

          He did not like her tone of voice.  After all, he was the degreed lawyer here, a lawyer who usually charged big fees.  She was lucky to have him. 

          He used his patient voice.

          "Mrs. Morton, you hired me to do a job.  A job I do extremely well.  You're just going to have to trust me to do my job."

          Her dark eyes narrowed.  "I didn't hire you," she said.  Her voice got quiet and steely.  "You offered your services to me."

          "That's right," Gillingham sniffed.  "And I don’t get paid unless I win," he reminded her.  "So it's in my own best interest to work hard to win this case, isn't it?"

          It was his trump card.  Any fool would be able to see that he would play to win. 

          She interrupted his thoughts.  "I don't care about _your_ best interests," she said icily.

          He was sure he couldn't possibly have heard that correctly.  He didn't have time to regroup.

          "You cannot let them say those things about my son," she said , her voice getting ouder and her face getting harder.

          It took him but a second to realize that she had at least partially read the papers from across the table and upside down.  He covered quickly.

          "Of course, it's not about _my_ best interests," he chided her with an artful little laugh to emphasize the ridiculousness of such a suggestion, while he cursed silently and wondered how he had so completely misjudged both that last argument and perhaps her stubbornness.  But no matter.  He continued smoothly, "I've no doubt we can win this case.  When I'm done, Agent Dunne will be sorry he ever left New York City.  No law enforcement agency will touch him after this." 

          Assuming, of course, his team found something good.  But then they always did.

          "Don’t worry," he said, infusing his voice with complete calm.  And sensitivity.  Don’t forget sensitivity.  "You have so much else on your plate right now.  Leave this to me."

          "You can _not_ let them say those things about my boy," she repeated a little more loudly as if there were some kind of problem with his hearing.

          He tried being assertive.  "Mrs. Morton—"

          She rode roughshod over him. 

          He tried being louder.  "Mrs. Morton—"

          Now she was on about hiring someone else.  Certainly not after the man hours he had already put in.  There was no way he was letting this go without remuneration for his time.

          "Mrs. Morton," he thundered at her. 

          She glared daggers at him, but she shut up.

          "Any decent attorney will tell you this is just the first tactic in the defense's case.  It is a classic position.  It is no surprise.  And any other attorney you talk to will tell you my game plan, as planned out, is a solid strategy."

          "You're just going to have to trust me," he said curtly.

          She glowered back at him for a moment, during which he wondered what was the best way to schedule their next meeting and then show her to the door.  And soon.  He had another, much more pleasant, appointment to get to.

          She solved the problem for him.

          "We'll see about that," she said quietly.  And she took herself to the door.

          It was a bluff.  He knew it.  She had no money for another lawyer.  He had looked into her financials himself. 

          "I'll have my assistant call to schedule our next meeting," he said, hustling to meet her at the office door.  "When we have more information, you'll see how this works," he assured her.

          She left without another word.

          He waited until she was completely gone from the office and the floor before he told his assistant he was having a long lunch. 

          His investigators had better dig up some damn good dirt, he decided sourly, stepping into the empty elevator.  Because only a hefty payoff in personal and professional gains was going to make his aggravation worthwhile.

 

 

          J.D. took to riding his bike farther and farther out into the country and then back into the city.  He took up running, too. 

          Buck was starting to look at him worriedly.

          J.D. said he had a lot on his mind.

          From his position leaning on the hallway wall, Buck muttered something that sounded a lot like, "Yeah, I've seen this before."

          J.D. just kept lacing his sneakers.

          "You know," Buck said, "Biking and running ain't gonna make the problems go away."

          J.D. didn't even look up.  "It helps clear my head."

          Buck answered with a skeptical grunt then growled out, "After that comes too much whiskey, brawling, not sleeping, and forgetting to eat."

          J.D. did raise his head to answer that.  "Hey," he said lightly, and forced a grin.  "You know me better'n that.  Since when have I ever forgotten to eat?"

          Buck did not smile back.  In fact, the blue eyes looked downright grim.

          It gave J.D. pause to think.  But it irked him, too.  After all, so far all he was guilty of was exercising more than he had in, well, ever.  And that was probably good for him.  Maybe Buck needed a hobby.  But J.D. sure as hell wasn't going to be it.

          "So when I get stupid enough to start drinking and picking fights in bars, then you can butt in," J.D. snapped. 

          "You get that stupid and I'll do more than butt in."  Buck's answering tone was genial, but his eyes were not. 

          J.D. dismissed him with one raised finger and went out the door.

          _Was that a threat?_   J.D. wondered as he hit the pavement, feet already pounding hard before he'd left the parking lot.  He turned a corner.

          The man couldn't be serious.  Picking fights in bars?  Just how stupid did Buck think he was? 

          The little bubble of anger helped him run just that much faster. 

          His thoughts turned west to the convenience store.  He saw the broken glass in his head and wondered if there was a new door.  If he set his course and paced himself and took a few shortcuts, he could jog by and look.  It was too far, he told himself. And he shouldn't go there anyway. 

          But if he biked…

          He crushed that thought brutally and turned his feet deliberately east one more time.  But his head was in the west.  And in the past.  And he knew it was only a matter of time before he found himself there again, revisiting the scene, and wondering yet again if he should have done something differently.

          Or if he should schedule another session with Dr. Braunzweig.

 

 

          When J.D. wasn't working off steam by working out, there was Casey, who was determined to keep his mind off his problems.

          Monday night there was a late dinner at a mall food court, chatter about nothing important whatsoever, and a movie at the theater: animated, silly, sarcastic and not involving violence or social issues beyond general kid-sized ones.  An evening of bland, vanilla normalcy engineered by Casey. 

          Just like Tuesday's two-for-one dinner at the Spaghetti Warehouse, where he tried hard to enjoy food he knew he actually liked and some romantic comedy on DVD that he couldn't keep his mind on no matter how hard he tried. 

          And also Wednesday evening roller-blading on the Boulder Creek trail, where she fell a lot and he had to help her up, which was a nice distraction, too, except for the fact he could see right through it. 

          She was busy Thursday night and texted him eight times to tell him how bored she was and to make funny, sarcastic comments about the other people stuck at the lecture with her.  He texted back because he knew all she wanted was to know he was okay and to keep him from brooding over the progress of the lawsuit.

          Friday, Buck insisted that J.D. join the entire team on a trip to the Saloon, through which Vin and Buck guffawed way too much, and Ezra tried to pretend he was above all the juvenile antics, and J.D. could tell by the look on Chris's face that he thought it was all a bunch of bullshit, too.  Chris even left early.  J.D. wished he had followed his boss's cue and exited right behind him. 

          Later, Casey took him out to a dance club followed by a more effective kind of distraction, one that made him glad Buck was gone for the night.

          Saturday was young yet.  He lay awake staring at the ceiling, knowing he had another day ahead of him specially engineered by Casey to have him chasing over hill and mountain and valley and stream, going here and there, this place and that, another day of Casey trying to keep him distracted every minute and J.D. listening to her chatter and watching her keep smiling that bright distracting smile, while the worry lines on her forehead got deeper and the sparkle in her eyes disappeared when she thought he wasn't looking at her. 

          More than anything J.D. wanted to tell her to stop it.  Stop trying to distract him.  Stop ignoring the fact that he killed three boys.  Stop trying to get him to forget that his reputation was going to be decided by a lawsuit when he didn't do anything wrong.  He wanted to tell her that it was impossible to forget it.  That all the not-discussing it made him want to grit his teeth. 

          He wanted to tell her all that.  But he didn't.  Because she was desperate to do something to help.  And he didn't have the heart to tell her that there wasn't anything she could do to help.  So he tried to play along, just so she might believe her ploy was working.

          And maybe for a few minutes or even a few hours at a time, maybe he did manage to forget.  And maybe it did help a little.

          He shrugged the covers off and sat up.  It was just as well to keep playing along because otherwise they'd have to talk.  And he surely didn't want to dump his entire load of uncertainty, anger, remorse, and shame down on her head.  She didn’t deserve that.  She was working far too hard to avoid it.

          He was getting rather adept at not talking about the case.  His vague general assurances that his attorney was experienced and keeping him up to date and the case was progressing just like Frank had said it would and that his attorney thought he had a very solid defense, were by now so practiced that he even managed to infuse them with sincerity and a confident smile. 

          He was even getting good at avoiding interrogation by well-meaning friends and teammates.  Buck and Chris and their good cop, bad cop mind-reading, and guerrilla come-at-'em-when-they-least-expect-it tactics kept him on his toes for a few days, but he'd finally figured out a few basics, chief among them was you can't interrogate someone effectively when you needed their attention to be on something else, like work.  And you can't interrogate someone who isn't present to be questioned.  So he kept himself busy at work, phenomenally busy, amazingly busy.  In fact, the surveillance and computer equipment in the team van had been restored to exacting top notch state of the art status, and he had applied to test out some new cutting-edge prototypes being developed at MIT, which was likely to add a mountain to his paperwork load. 

          The rest of the time, J.D. avoided talking to Chris about anything that was not strictly team business.  And also looking him in the eye as much as possible.  Buck, J.D. knew from long experience living with the man, was no less dogged and no less clever than Chris at interrogation, but he was somewhat easier to distract.  Being J.D.'s housemate, he was also harder to dodge.  Thus, J.D worked to avoid being trapped in the same room with the man for any length of time.  So far, his strategies seemed to be working.

          He fingered Braunzweig's business card and wondered whether he really needed to go to his scheduled session.  He didn't want to talk about it with the therapist anymore either.

          The guy was good, just like Chris had said.  But J.D. was sick of "dealing with" his problems.  It seemed to J.D. that biking, running, and working out like a demon did a better job of shutting up his head and blowing off his steam and helping him get to sleep at night. 

 

 

          But Chris knew better, and he was concerned.

          J.D. looked more and more exhausted every day.  He was way too loud at the Saloon when they went out last Friday, and after Buck left, Vin got all Texan and instructed Inez's bartender on how to make a genuine Texas Tea.  So J.D. ditched his beer and had a big ol' glass of "tea" like Vin's.  Chris wanted to kick Vin under the table for that.  But he kept his foot planted right where it was.  Before he left, he told Vin to make damn sure J.D. got home all right.

          The look Vin gave him made Chris remember why he left the mother henning to Buck.

          Unfortunately, Chris was pretty sure that J.D. was avoiding Buck whenever possible.  Not that Chris could blame the kid for that.  He knew what it was like to be on the receiving end of Buck's Mama mode.  However, J.D. avoiding Buck meant that Buck now spent part of his work days telegraphing Chris increasingly demanding looks urging _him_ to do something. 

          Chris had no idea what Buck expected him to do about the situation.  It wasn't like _he_ was a lawyer.  It wasn't like he had anything whatsoever to do with the case, except for testifying as a character witness, which he had gladly told Frank Lawton he would do.

          It seemed easier to take a page from Buck's own handbook and try being deliberately oblivious.  Except he sucked at oblivious. 

          Wading into J.D.'s problems made Chris think about people and events he didn't want to think about—like the other people involved in the lawsuit.  And he didn't want to think about them.  Especially the part about cemeteries and hospital rooms and what it was like to wake up in an empty house instead of one that was filled with life and laughter and hope for the future. 

          He'd woken two days this week with the memory of ashes sharp in his nose.

          He looked at the pile of work on his desk.  Cases were rolling in.  There was nothing he could do for J.D.  And he had a job to do. 

          In the office, Chris carried on, ignoring Buck's looks and immersing himself in the cases on hand.  But it was in Chris's nature to strategize, to chew on a problem until a course of action became clear.  He found himself adding more miles to his daily runs, as if a way to help J.D. might be found somewhere out on the asphalt if he just ran far enough. 

 

 

          Buck didn't have to be a trained investigator to know J.D. was avoiding him.  Attempting—again—to take matters in hand, he escaped a planned meeting early and got home in time to intercept J.D. in the act of lacing up his sneakers.  His bike helmet was on the floor beside him. 

          He bit back on a sarcastic inquiry about just _when_ the Iron Man Triathalon was coming to Denver.  Instead he planted himself in J.D.'s path and said, "Didn't you run this morning?"

          J.D. didn't look up.  "I'll be back in a couple of hours," he said.

          "Don't you think this is a little much?" Buck asked pointedly.

          "Then Casey and I are going out," J.D. replied, avoiding the question entirely.

          He went around Buck the other way, and grabbed his bicycle.

          "J.D.," Buck said sternly, hurrying after.

          "I'll be home late," the kid continued.  He was at the front door.  Then it was open and J.D. was pushing his bike out into the hallway.

          Buck considered grabbing hold of either J.D. or the bike and forcing him to stop.  He wondered if J.D. would take a swing at him if he did. 

          Buck let him go.  But he didn't have to let him go gracefully. 

          "Sweat ain't gonna make the problem go away," Buck hollered after him, the front doors closing on his words before they were even finished.

          It was against Buck's better judgment, all things considered, but he dialed the cell phone anyway.

          Chris's angry voice came on without so much as a hello.  "What the hell happened to you this afternoon?"

          Buck rolled his eyes.  It wasn't like he didn't go to the meeting.  He did his part. 

          "They were done with me, so I left," Buck said.  Actually, he told them he had an appointment and cut out, but Chris didn't need to know that.  "No point spending the taxpayers' money needlessly," he said, parroting something Chris himself had said on more than one similar occasion.

          "And how is your tooth?" Chris asked drily. 

          _Dammit._  

          How did he find out these things?

          "Imagine my surprise to discover the agony you were in all day," Chris continued sarcastically.  "You never once let on."

          Buck changed the subject—to something more important.

          "Someone has to talk to J.D.," he said.

          "So talk to him," Chris answered.  From the sound of the wind and traffic, Chris was on the road, with the windows rolled down.

          "Well, I would," Buck said tartly, trying not to grind his teeth together.  "But he's avoiding me."

          "Maybe you're mother-henning him to death," Chris answered. 

          _Bastard._

          "Maybe you're not paying enough attention," Buck snapped.  "Because he's avoiding you, too.  Or haven't you noticed?"  Chris could be deliberately obtuse when the mood struck him, but Buck knew there was no way he had missed _this_.

          "So how am I supposed to talk to him then?" Chris retorted, sounding out of breath. 

          "At least I'm trying," Buck pointed out.

          "At least J.D.'s doing his job," Chris snapped back. 

          "Leave him alone," Chris said, a heavy breath or two later.  "It's not like he's gonna hurt himself.  He'll talk when he's ready."

          "Where are you?" Buck asked, his eyes narrowing.  He looked at the clock.

          "Running," Chris puffed. 

          Buck frowned hard at the clock.  It would be dark soon.  Why were both of those morons out on the road?  One or both of 'em were gonna get mowed down like a damn deer and then the hospital was going to call Buck to come fill out the paperwork.

          He glowered at his phone.  _Not like he was going to hurt himself…_  

          Right.  'Cause nobody had ever done himself any harm by working too hard to ignore big problems eating away at him piece by piece.  Nope.  Nobody.

          Chris could be a real asshole when he wanted to be.

          Buck hung up before he said something he really regretted about Chris and complete hypocrisy.  It wasn't worth it.

          Standing in the kitchen, and glowering at the tile floor, Buck reminded himself for what had to have been the fifteenth time in three days that this was different. 

          J.D. was just blowing off steam. 

          It was not hellbent masochism threatening to become violent self-destruction. 

          It was not going to become whiskey swilling and bar fighting. 

          This was J.D. for chrissakes.  Most of the time the kid drank more soda or milk than he did beer.  He was a good kid with his head screwed on straight.  Usually. 

          But this court case was eating him alive.

          Buck grabbed his mug off the counter and poured himself a strong coffee from this morning's leftovers.

          This was just a court case, he told himself and carried his mug to the little microwave.  The mug was too full and he set it carefully down on the glass turntable.

          Okay, yeah, he admitted.  It was likely to get rough.  And probably ugly.  But the kid was tough.  He had people to back him up.

          But then no one, in Buck's opinion, was tougher than Chris Larabee.  And Chris had always had people to back him up, too, if he had just turned around and looked.  But did he?  Hell no!  He avoided them.  Every one of them.  Then he cut and ran.

          Buck jabbed at the buttons on the microwave.

          This was different, he told himself again.  J.D. was not Chris.  He was nowhere near as hotheaded or hardheaded as Chris.

          The mug began to turn slowly around in circles inside the little oven.

          Dammit, it was a court case, he reminded himself.  It was not life and death.  At least not the lives and deaths of people J.D. really knew.  Or loved.  Or was responsible for. 

          It was not history repeating itself.  It was different.

          At the ding, he reached for the steaming mug and told himself quite reasonably that a court case was small potatoes in comparison to the shit that had driven Chris down that dark and destructive path.  He snorted.  Chris would hardly get himself that worked up about a court case. 

          But then J.D. was not Chris. 

          Buck swore and sloshed hot coffee all over the floor and his hand.  He swore again as he went for a paper towel to clean it up.  And he wondered if maybe he ought to run more, too.  Then maybe his fucking friends wouldn’t stress him out so much.

 

 

          By the next day, Buck was throwing worried glances in J.D.'s direction whenever he thought J.D. wasn't looking, and glaring at Chris when he knew Chris was looking, both of which were really getting on J.D.'s nerves.  And everybody else's too, J.D. decided, when Vin, balancing his office phone on his shoulder, pinged Buck in mid-glare with a paper wad.

          Impervious to Wilmington's black glare, Vin spun one hand in the air in a gesture that meant "hurry the hell up already."

          J.D. would have bet money that Buck had forgotten just what it was that Vin had asked him. 

          But Buck didn't miss a beat.  "I'm working on it," he ground out.

          A question from Ezra, on the other end of the line interrupted the hairy eyeball that Vin was giving Buck and caught the sharpshooter slightly off balance.  The instant he turned his attention to the phone, a yellow paper missile whapped him squarely in the side of the head, causing Vin to nearly drop the phone.

          "There's your damn answer," Buck snapped. 

          Promising death with his eyes, Vin uncrumpled the paper and read the information on it out loud to Ezra.

          "Best not forget who you're dealing with, Junior," Buck muttered under his breath and yet plenty loud enough for J.D. and Vin, he was sure, to hear.

          J.D., happy to have Buck's focus anywhere but on him, supposed that was true.  It was easy to forget Buck was a trained amphibious special forces warrior.  Until you saw him in action, that was. 

          He wondered sometimes if he could have hacked that kind of brutal training, whether he would have had what it took.  He supposed not.

          Then he wondered, for the hundredth time and still just as uselessly whether Chris and Buck would have handled that situation in the convenience store any better.

          Sometimes he thought so, but then he couldn't honestly say.  Would they somehow have reacted faster or thought faster?  Would they have  aimed truer?  Or would they have found a way to settle it without shooting?  He couldn't really say.  And for the hundredth time, he had to admit there was no way to know. 

          Frank and Dr. Braunzweig both told him second-guessing himself now was not going to help anyone.  But it was hard not to. 

          He wondered if it was okay to say he was sorry that those boys were dead.  Frank had told him he wouldn't be fully human if he didn't regret it at least a little.  It showed he had a heart.  It did his character credit.

          Frank and Braunzweig agreed on that, too.

          But J.D. wasn't so sure dragging those boys' names through the mud did him much credit at all.  There didn't seem to be a lot of moral high ground here.

          Frank told him he had an impressive list of character references, including members of the Denver Police and the District and U.S. Attorneys' staffs.  He had known his teammates would line up, but it was nice to know other people wanted to come forward to help him, too.  It was a reminder—proof he could hold on to—that  he did his job well, and the work he did mattered. 

          He noticed Buck frowning in his direction again and dove back into the records he had been searching, reminding himself that being a mother hen was Buck's problem not his.  J.D.'s problems were worse.  But he had a handle on them and he was holding on to that handle for all he was worth.

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

 

          Normally, Buck would have said Chris Larabee was a pretty perceptive guy.  In the last few days he had cause to wonder if Chris was being stupid on purpose or had lost touch completely. 

          Any idiot could see the toll this entire shooting incident and lawsuit was taking on their youngest teammate.  Beside the ambitious new workout program, there was the going out.  Even Casey had grown concerned at the way J.D. was trying to make everyone believe he was having a good time.  She had actually started suggesting they stay in more often.  On top of all that, J.D. was coming in to work earlier, staying later, and working far too hard in the middle.  He was losing weight and his face had lost all color.  Actively avoiding all possibility of having down time that might force a guy to think about the problems he faces could do that to a person. 

          Buck knew he wasn't the only one who had noticed.  Nathan, especially, had tried to broach the topic more than once.

          J.D.'s constant assurances of "I'm all right" and "I'm fine" were getting on Buck's last nerve.

          If there was one person who might be able to get through to the kid, it was probably Chris.

          If Chris wasn't so busy getting J.D. an appointment with Travis and some of the other assistant directors to demonstrate the potential crime-fighting capabilities of the new software and hardware prototypes J.D. had signed up to scope out for his genius friends at MIT.  At least here, the kid's enthusiasm was genuine, eyes shining too bright out of his fatigued face. 

          Of course, prepping his presentation had him burning the candle at both ends—what was left of the candle anyway. 

          All Buck's offers to assist had been spurned.

          J.D.'s bedroom filled up with odd cyborg-like equipment with cables and wires, power strips, and extension cords.  Loaned out laptops networked together spilled out into the hallway, lined up toward the stairs like the queu for the bathroom at a playoff game.  They made a very gloomy series of nightlights where they quietly and endlessly ran and re-ran simultaneous programs Buck didn't even pretend to understand.

          And J.D. adamantly stated that he didn't have time to explain either, reciting the quickly dwindling number of hours and days before "showtime."

          Buck was reduced to dangling take-out in front of J.D.'s nose and sneaking back later to see if the kid ate anything. 

          When J.D. went down to IT for the ninety-seventh time, making sure the systems he needed would be set up according to his specifications in time for his demonstration in an upstairs conference room at 10:00 the next morning, Buck tried to broach the topic with Chris.  To ask him one last time if Travis could delay the demonstration, while there was still some of J.D. left. 

          Chris disagreed—not with the evidence in front of his face, however.  Just that he was not calling off the demo.  The invitation had been issued by Travis, and Chris and Travis both thought it would do J.D.—and the team—some good for other members of the Bureau hierarchy to see J.D. in a more impressive light.  J.D. needed that.

          Buck told Chris that was a load of bullshit.  What J.D. needed was sleep.  And food.  And someone to hold him down and talk at him long enough to get it through his thick skull that he wasn't making his problems any smaller by running away from them—he was just damaging himself.

          Chris told Buck the only thing that was going to fix J.D.'s problem was for the suit to take its course.  It was in Frank Lawford's hands.  And in the meantime, there wasn't a damn thing J.D. could do to fix it or make it disappear, so what was the point of sitting around and dwelling on it?  He also reminded Buck that J.D. had the number of a very good therapist if he needed someone to talk to.

          Buck clamped his teeth together hard, willed his clenched fists to just stay at his side.  He wanted to ask Chris when he started recommending therapists instead of being a goddamn friend.  But then Buck remembered that he was talking to a brick wall. 

          He left the office steaming mad. 

          Ezra took one look at his face, turned to Vin and said way too loudly, "Don't you hate it when Mom and Dad fight?"

          Vin, Nathan, and Josiah all took one look at Buck's face and tried hard not to snicker. 

          Buck continued right through the bullpen door, taking himself for a time out somewhere where there was food and coffee and maybe some prettier scenery—but most importantly, no one he wanted to punch.

 

 

          J.D. was practically euphoric over the success of his presentation to a room full of brass.  In Buck's opinion, the kid had worked hard enough on it to earn the right to walk on cloud nine for days—or at least as long as it could be made to last. 

          He shared a ride home with Buck, more juiced up than he'd been in days, weeks maybe.  He talked the whole ride home about the prototypes and how they would help Team Seven do their job, and about which Assistant Directors were there and the looks on their faces and the questions they asked and how impressed they all were and how smugly Travis had smiled at all of them when he said "Agent Dunne does good work."  Out of Buck's truck, in the front doors, into the townhouse, fetching the phone while Buck tried to sneak in a whole bunch of "attaboys" and other encouraging words of praise whenever J.D. had to stop his narrative to breathe.  Never mind that the whole team had already heard the story today, blow-by-blow.  Buck was just getting another viewing of the highlight film. 

          "This deserves a celebration," Buck said, his enthusiasm was all for seeing J.D. so excited and not for the prototypes he took with a grain of salt or the dark bruises of circles beneath his friend's eyes.  He didn't say that, though.  He just waved a fistful of take-out menus in front of the kid's face. 

          "Can't," J.D. practically shouted over his shoulder as he jogged to his bedroom down the first floor hallway.  "No time.  I'm taking Casey out."

          Buck hung his head a moment.  _No time._   Translation:  _Can't slow down.  The past will eat me._

Buck wasn't one to dwell on problems when there was nothing he could do about them.  He could try to take this problem by the horns one more time tomorrow, but there was nothing he could do tonight.  He shrugged and decided that he could take someone out too—someone a lot prettier than J.D. with curves in all the right kinds of places. 

          Buck came home again, not too late—but not too early either—to see J.D. sitting alone in the living room, studying the television, chin in hands, and a frown etched deeply into his face.

          Some CNN show. 

          The topic under discussion:  recent statistics comparing the percentage of shooting fatalities in arrest cases, broken down by racial and ethnic demographics.  To Buck it sounded like the same old story.  What color are the cops and which guys do they tend to shoot to death?  He'd heard this before.  Many times. 

          So had J.D.

          But right now, Buck knew all J.D. could think about was how he was responsible for some small part of it. 

          It was a jagged little rock and it effectively broke up the wave of happiness J.D. had been riding since the presentation that morning, and then sucked the kid down into the undertow to sink like a stone.

          J.D. looked up at Buck, revealing an expression that made Buck's stomach hurt.  But J.D. recovered quickly, faking a huge yawn and then clicking off the television.

          "I'm going to bed," he said. 

          With the scent of Kylie Jessup's perfume still lingering about him and the memory of her lips on his, Buck sat alone on his worn sofa and stared at the blank black television screen, as if it were a scrying glass.  Maybe if he looked long enough, some image would coalesce into being, some omen that might reveal the future and tell him the lay of the land ahead.  The glass stayed unrelentingly and depressingly black.

         

 

 

          Standing at the coffee machine, Buck contemplated one more time whether he might try asking Chris—nicely this time—to speak to J.D.  If he wouldn't listen to Buck, then maybe he would listen to his damn hero.  Plus Buck knew Chris.  Chris could break him down, get him to confess, spill his guts about what was going on in his head.  Chris was good at that.  He was sneaky like that.

          Then Chris could tell J.D. all about how keeping all that shit bottled up doesn't help you.  It only makes the explosion bigger when it comes.  He could convince the kid to lean on his friends for support.  Or make another appointment with that counselor.  Yeah, Chris could do all of that if he didn't have his head up in some happy "Look how much work we're getting done" place in his ass. 

          But how could Buck convince him?

          "If you're that distracted, maybe you're the one who needs some time off," Chris's voice said, so close behind Buck that it made him jump. 

          "See what I mean," Chris said drily.

          Buck glared at him and willed his heart to stop pounding and thinking about how damn lucky Chris was that Buck had great self control.  The bastard was lucky he didn't just draw his gun on reflex and shoot him.  Would serve him right for being a smartass.

          But Buck didn't say that because Chris would just point out that he might be a smartass but he was also right, which wasn't something Buck wanted to discuss.  The asshole was right far too often as it was.

          "How is he today?" Chris asked quietly, reaching around Buck for his coffee mug.

          "Coming apart at the seams," Buck replied shortly and gave Chris an enormous shit-eating grin that clearly added the unspoken "you bastard" onto the end of the statement.

          Chris gave the look right back to him, although his enormous grin promised pain in the not too distant future.

          "Boys," Josiah said from the doorway to the kitchen.

          "Josiah," Buck and Chris returned in unison, raising their coffee mugs in mock salute and wearing smiles much too fierce to be quite friendly.

          Josiah's eyes flicked calmly from one to the other and back again.  He raised his own mug and squeezed between them to the coffee maker, where he filled his mug and turned to lean on the counter, still standing right between them.

          He took a satisfied sip of his coffee before asking both of them, "Is this a family squabble or a work squabble?  'Cause I gotta tell you, it's getting damn hard to tell the difference."

          Chris and Buck both glowered at him before going back to scowling at each other.

          Josiah shrugged and took another sip.  "You want to know what I think?"

          "No," Buck and Chris both answered.

          Josiah pushed off the counter and stood up. 

          "He's gonna tell us anyway," Buck said to Chris.

          "Yup," Chris agreed, none too pleased.

          Josiah was unperturbed.  "I think maybe you can't tell anymore either."

          Both Buck and Chris rolled their eyes in opposite directions and started for the door, only to find Nathan in their path, filling up the doorway with all six foot three inches of vertical height and equal wingspan.  The medic looked right past them toward Josiah.

          Josiah saluted Nathan with his mug.  "A timely piece of backup, brother," he said.  "As I was saying," he continued, spearing first Buck and then Chris with a look, "it's hard to get on the same page, when you're reading from different playbooks."

          "Meaning?" Chris asked in a voice that did not hold out hope of much more patience.

          Like the other half of a pair of bookends, Buck swung back to face Josiah, too.  "You got a Cliffs notes version of this sermon, or do I need to sit down?"

          Josiah smiled obligingly and pointed his mug at Buck.  "You: Family Problem."  The mug swung around to point at Chris.  "Him: Work Problem."

          "Short enough for you?" Nathan asked grumpily.

          Chris and Buck looked at each other out of the corners of their eyes.

          Chris gave the floor a hard stare before breathing in and turning to face Josiah.  "I get your point," he bit out.

          "Smart man," Josiah answered.  "And you?" he asked Buck.

          "Loud and clear," Buck answered grudgingly.

          "I figure," Josiah said casually, walking between them once again on his way to the door.  "Two smart fellas like you ought to be able to exchange playbooks and figure the rest out on your own."

          Nathan moved out of the doorway, and he and Josiah went back out into the bullpen.

          "You do nice work," Nathan's voice floated back to them.

          "From your lips to God's ear," Josiah returned.

          Buck and Chris stood in the kitchenette, Chris rubbing the back of his neck and regarding the tile at his feet, and Buck regarding the opposite wall.  For a long moment, neither man spoke.

          It was Buck who finally broke the silence.  "We still got a problem."

          "Yeah," Chris agreed, not looking up.

          "So what are we gonna do about it?" Buck asked.

          Chris looked at him through narrowed eyes.  "I can't wave a magic wand and make this all disappear, Buck," he said.  "I need your head in the game.  Here.  Right now.  On the cases on our plates."

          "I know," Buck breathed out and really tried not to make it sound anything like _Fuck you._   "But," his right hand flapped in the direction of the bullpen toward J.D.'s desk.  "We can't just ignore what's happening right in front of our faces."

          Chris sighed.  "I know," he finally admitted.  "But the harder you push, the harder he pulls away.  So what are you actually accomplishing?"

          Buck scowled at Chris on general principle.  "So what do you suggest, Mr. Tactical Genius?"

          The tiniest of smiles flickered across Chris's lips.  "It appears to me that we have reached an impasse."

          "Meaning?" Buck asked impatiently

          Chris grinned wider.  "Let Josiah talk to him."

          Buck looked at Chris for a moment, then out through the doorway into the bullpen as if thinking it over.

          "Besides understanding the situation, as a former priest, Agent Sanchez is a trained counselor, not to mention his degree in psychology," Chris said blandly.

          "And he does good work," Buck added.

          "From your lips to God's ear," Chris replied.

          Buck nodded.  The more he thought about it, the more he liked it.  J.D. was likely to listen to Josiah, too.

          They moved toward the doorway.  "Now why didn't I think of that?" Buck asked, taking a sip of his coffee.

          "Because you're not a tactical genius," Chris answered, smirking into his mug.

          Buck didn't concede the point.  But he didn't argue it either.

 

 

          It was pouring outside.  It would have been a miserable bike ride and an even more miserable run.  Staring out between the giant concrete pillars of the parking garage, J.D. contemplated turning around and running, biking, and/or stair climbing himself to exhaustion on one of the workout machines in the basement gym.  He hated working out on equipment.  In reality, beating the crap out of the innocent heavy bag sounded really good, but he'd watched too many guys who really knew what they were doing go at the bag with both skill and vengeance that he steered clear of it just on the general principle that one of them might see his lack of prowess. 

          The irony was, up until the last several weeks, he had hated working out pretty much in general and only did it because it was part of his job requirements.  Not to mention he occasionally had to shower with the ex-special forces, masochistic, body Nazis that made up a good part of his team.  And it got very tiresome to have to continually suck in even what little one had of a gut in front of these guys, just on the off chance they might even notice.  And J.D. was pretty sure if he let himself go even a little bit out of shape, one of them would say something.  Probably Buck.  Buck was generally a pain in the ass about letting everyone know J.D.'s business.

          On that thought, Josiah's voice rumbled behind him. 

          "Looking to work off some steam, John Dunne?"

          Judging from the sound of it, the man was several steps away and giving him advance notice, which was good, because J.D. didn't doubt that if startled, he might just hit first and look later.  Lately he felt like his whole body was strung together with rubber bands and each day found them twisted up just a little tighter.  Occasionally he imagined there would come a point when one of those bands would snap and he would go windmilling about the townhouse or the office or the federal building or the city in general like a giant top, arms out and mowing down pedestrians and wreaking destruction as he ricocheted from one obstacle to the next until all the bands wound down and he collapsed.

          It was the kind of thought that caused him to wonder about his own sanity and tempted him to call Frank back and tell him to just settle.  Settle and make it go away. 

          He stared grimly at the rain before turning to look over his shoulder just as Josiah came up beside him.  A large, warm hand dropped briefly to his shoulder and was gone just as suddenly. 

          "I expect the rain has ruined your prospects for outdoor exercise," Josiah said nodding toward the gloomy outdoors.

          J.D. looked at him suspiciously. 

          "It just so happens that I am heading home to an evening of judicious demolition," Josiah said cheerfully.  "And I could use an extra hand if you've got one."

          "Demolition?" J.D. asked.  Josiah's old house was in a continuous state of remodeling.  Privately J.D. thought it had less to do with the house's problems than Josiah's.

          Josiah shrugged and gave him one of his patented toothy smiles.  "Sometimes knocking down a wall or two is just the cure for what ails a man."

          In the face of that grin, J.D. couldn't help but smile back.  He doubted that punching holes in plaster was really going to solve his problems, but it sure couldn't hurt. 

          He shrugged.  "I'm willing to give it a try." 

          "Good," Josiah said cheerfully.  He clapped his large hand down on J.D.'s shoulder once more and gave it a squeeze.  "Meet you at my house.  I'll supply dinner."

          J.D. made a mental note to throw some antacids into his bag before he headed to Josiah's.

          A moment later he was jogging to his car.  If he hurried, he could be at home and back out again before Buck and Chris finished whatever they were doing in Chris's office, and Buck got around to leaving the building.

 

 

          Turned out Josiah wasn't far off the mark.  Sitting on the wooden stoop that formed Josiah's back porch, plaster dust coating his clothes, his arms, his hair, and from the taste of it on his lips, his face, too, J.D. supposed he shouldn't be all that surprised.  After all, even Chris went to Josiah for advice from time to time.  That had to speak volumes for the man's wisdom.

          A frosty brown bottle dangled suddenly in front of his face and he grabbed it with one dusty white hand, streaking white across the glass as the plaster dust mingled with the tiny droplets of water.  The label proclaimed it to be a very fine quality root beer. 

          He chuffed out a laugh at that and glowered sideways as Josiah folded up long legs and plunked down beside him.  There was an identical bottle in the other man's hand. 

          "Root beer?" J.D. asked disdainfully.

          "Don't knock it 'til you've tried it," Josiah answered.  He took a long draught from the bottle, ending it with a deep sigh of satisfaction.

          J.D. looked at him suspiciously but took a sip.  Josiah had a point.  It was quite possibly the best root beer he could remember having in a whole lifetime of root beer drinking.  It had been a long time since he had had one.

          Josiah was watching him expectantly.  "Told you," said the bigger man after a moment.

          J.D. grinned.  He couldn't help it.  "You been hiding the good stuff, Preacher?" 

          "Well," Josiah said modestly.  "I couldn't exactly serve any old root beer to a self-proclaimed expert."  He looked over at J.D.  "I seem to recall you professing to be a first-rate expert on the subject."

          J.D. felt his ears turn red.  "Yeah, well," he said more quietly, taking another sip.  "Time was I thought I knew an awful lot about a lot of things."

          Josiah nodded his head and they stared out over the tiny backyard, a patchwork of sparse grass and bald spots of bare dirt surrounded by a shiny chain-link fence.  Putting the fence up had taken the whole team a whole afternoon and included a whole lot of swearing, largely directed at Ezra, who claimed to be supervising from his spot in a half-broken lawn chair seated conveniently next to the drink cooler.

          Josiah interrupted J.D.'s thoughts.  "Some would say that sort of realization would show just how wise you have become," he said.

          J.D.'s answering snort proclaimed his thoughts before he even spoke.  "I sure don't feel very wise," he said.  He looked over at Josiah before scowling out at the yard.  "I tell you lately, I mostly feel stupid."

          Still staring at some undefined spot out along the fence, Josiah blandly replied, "Socrates said 'True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.'."

          "Oh," J.D. said, and tried not to let the bitter twist of his lips spoil his very fine root beer.  "I guess that makes me just about the smartest guy around then."

          Josiah shrugged his shoulders noncommittally.  "A man begins cutting his wisdom teeth the first time he bites off more than he can chew," he quoted.

          J.D. turned to stare at him.  Just how many quotes could roll around in one man's head and not get their words all mixed up?

          As he felt J.D.'s stare, Josiah kept his smile to himself.  The nice part about being here with J.D. was that J.D. was still young enough to actually listen.  Most of the others would have told him to skip the platitudes—or just up and walked away.   

          It was hard to explain to a stubborn bunch like that that the point of quotations was that they were the words of wiser men, men who made their way through some of the same trials and tribulations and had something to offer from having had the experience.  Josiah was a counselor by nature.  The training just helped him hone his skills.  And frankly, working with his hardheaded little band of brothers, he was thankful for all the help he could get.

          They sipped their root beers in silence, as evening descended and the patches of grass and dirt melded and mingled and spread out into an indiscernible, dim pool of shadow.

          The sky darkened to a mottled cloudy charcoal, lit a dirty yellow underneath by the glow of street lamps and porchlights.  It began to rain again, sort of.  It was a half-hearted effort, at best, of intermittent drops that seemed to hang in the air like they were just too despondent to finish falling.

          Perhaps, Josiah considered, his perspective was skewed by J.D.'s mood.

          The young agent was somewhat less tense now, having indeed worked off some steam in knocking down the plaster wall some previous owner had erected in Josiah's basement.  There was something soul-deep and satisfying in demolition. 

          But now that the defenses of tension and anger had been dissipated a bit by pure and simple hard work, a gloom had settled over J.D.  A resignation of sorts.  And Josiah could see why Buck would worry, the way he watched over their youngest comrade like J.D. was his own little brother. 

          Josiah knew Buck to be the staunchest of friends.  When he was in your corner, he was there for good.  And Josiah had seen for himself how fiercely the man protected his friends from dangers.  It was hard for Buck to accept that he could not also protect his friends from themselves.  And there were battles that he could not join them in fighting.

          Josiah sighed.

J.D. was looking at him. "Isn't this the part where you're supposed to give me some words of advice to make my problems all go away and we can all go back to being normal?"

The words were sarcastic, but the tone held a wistful note that dug a sharp furrow into Josiah's heart. "I wish that I could, John Dunne," he answered. "I wish I could."

I wish you could, too," J.D. sighed and looked off in the other direction.

          It was what he had wanted from Doctor Braunzweig, too.  But he didn't get it and here he was, still painfully twisting in the twin grips of a past he couldn't change and a future he couldn't foretell. 

          The drizzle dampened their hair, their clothes, the backs of their necks. 

          J.D.'s voice was soft.  "Every day I see it again.  I've been over it a thousand times.  I've been over everything I could have done differently."

          "What could you have done differently?" Josiah asked.

          One of J.D.'s shoulders tilted up in a painfully reticent shrug.  "I could have done a lot of stuff differently," he said.  Then he turned to face Josiah. "But I don't know if it would have made any difference."

          Josiah regarded him silently.

          "Maybe if I'd waited a second longer, I could have seen that one of those boys didn't have a gun," J.D. said.

          "You could have," Josiah agreed. 

          J.D.'s eyes unfocused as his sight turned back over time.

          "He was running for the door, Josiah," J.D. said.  He looked up.  "The other two were firing in my direction and he ran behind them."

          In the yellow glow of the back porchlight, J.D. didn't look all that much older than those boys who haunted his memory.  The hazel eyes pleaded with him.  "I didn't mean to kill him."

          "J.D.," Josiah said, leaning back and resisting the urge to lay both hands on J.D.'s shoulders as if he were only a boy.  "If you ask me, you didn't really mean to kill any of those boys.  From where I stand, the moment you identified yourself and they started shooting, they left you no choice."

          J.D. looked hard at him.  "Is that really true?" he asked.  His voice took on a brittle edge.  "I shot to kill."

          "Instead of what?" Josiah asked.

          "I'm a trained marksman," J.D. said, his voice suddenly scornful.  "I could have shot to wound."

          Josiah's eyebrows betrayed his surprise.  "To wound?"

          J.D.'s voice gathered certainty.  The idea had occurred to him days ago actually.  And it was so damn obvious.  That was what he could have done differently.  Left those boys wounded, writhing on the ground, but alive, not dead and with a reason to remember not to go around robbing people.

          "You tell that to your lawyer?"  Josiah asked.

          "No," J.D. blurted out, taken aback.  "I haven't told anyone that.  But you asked," he said defensively.  "And that's what I could have done differently.  And then those boys would still be alive."

          "Maybe," Josiah said slowly. 

          "Or maybe," The smoothly accented and sarcastic voice startled both of them. 

          "Maybe you would be dead, and they would be, too, after the ensuing manhunt in which they were gunned down by a whole squad of law enforcement officers after the murder of a storekeeper and a federal agent during a botched robbery attempt."

          Josiah raised his bottle in greeting to the glowering southerner who stood at the corner of the house. 

          "It's raining," Ezra said curtly. 

          "What are you doing here?" J.D. asked.

          "Evidently you all expect I have nothing better to do with my time than run a delivery service," he said, brushing with ill-disguised disgust at the water droplets clinging to his overcoat.  "Without sufficient remuneration, I might add," he said, scowling at Josiah.

          "Come on in, then," Josiah said as affably as if Ezra hadn't been griping at all.

          He opened the back door and beckoned Ezra and J.D. both into the kitchen.

          "This," Ezra said, pushing a stack of papers and books aside and placing his briefcase on top of the table, "is from Mr. Larabee."  He pulled out a fat manila folder.

          "Evidently," Ezra said coolly, "he expects you have nothing better to do with your personal time either."

          Josiah gave a toothy grin.  Ezra had been making himself as scarce as possible at the office lately.  "I'm surprised he managed to catch you."

          "So am I," Ezra replied, looking around the small, cluttered, but brightly-lit kitchen.  His eyes lit on the bottle in Josiah's hand.  "May I?" he asked.

          "Help yourself," Josiah answered, pointing the mouth of the bottle toward the refrigerator.

          Ezra scowled when he read the label on the bottle, but he opened it anyway and took a swallow.  J.D. nearly laughed at the grimace on Ezra's face.

          "I can't believe a grown man would drink this puerile syrup," he said in disgust.

          "To each his own," Josiah said mildly and winked at J.D.  "As you were saying," he said, waving his bottle toward Ezra.

          "I was not saying," Ezra said emphatically.  "But if you must know, I had to go back to the office and they were still there."

          "They?" Josiah asked.

          "Yes," Ezra grimaced.  He tried another sip before placing the bottle on the counter, deigning to touch it only with the tips of his fingers, which he wiped on a kitchen towel.  "Have you nothing drinkable in this house?" he asked.

          Josiah opened the refrigerator himself and indicated the contents.  Ezra chose a bottle of water, and seemed less than happy about it.

          "They?" Josiah prompted again.

          "Yes, they," Ezra answered impatiently.  "Our fearless leader and his faithful accomplice."

          Josiah and J.D. looked at each other and then at Ezra.  They waited.

          "Buck," Ezra clarified impatiently as if that were self evident. 

          "What were they doing?"  J.D. asked.

          "Working."  Ezra rolled his eyes.  "Yes, implausible as it sounds, they have quit bickering just long enough to make my life even more miserable," He nodded toward the crisp manila folder laying on the table.  "And yours, too, Mr. Sanchez."

          Josiah smiled.  More than likely, Buck just wanted to see how things were going with J.D.  He wondered if that was why Ezra was here playing the reluctant messenger.  Still, the manila folder was real, as was the work inside it.  Count on Chris to seize an opportunity.

          Nevertheless it was still good to hear the rift between the two long-time friends was holding stable, since they dumped their problem on Josiah with point blank orders to find a solution.  Now if only he could find a genie…

          Ezra finished his water and put the bottle in the sink.  "If you will excuse me, gentlemen," he said and turned toward the doorway and the front door beyond the living room.

          "Big plans?" Josiah smiled.

          "Any plans," Ezra sniffed, "would be an improvement on," he indicated the clutter, the mismatched furniture piled high with newspapers, mail, and the general detritus of everyday life.  At a loss for adequate words he ended with "this."

          "That's not fair," J.D. butted in on Josiah's behalf.

          "This from the man who would shoot to wound," Ezra practically sneered.  Hand on the doorknob, he turned back.  "At what point, one might inquire, did any instructor at any law enforcement academy instruct you in the fine art of shooting to wound?"

          J.D. glared at him stonily.

          Ezra sniffed.  "Exactly," he said in answer to J.D.'s silence.  "One would think a person with your acumen might conclude there's probably a good reason for that."

          Which was precisely the reason J.D. had never mentioned it.  He could just hear Buck going off now about the pure stupidity of the idea.  He knew that. 

          "I'm sure neither of those two armed delinquents were shooting to wound you," Ezra bit out, as he opened the door. 

          That was for sure, J.D. knew.  Both of those boys were just shooting to hit something, anything.  Firing almost without aiming.  And no less dangerous, for it, he conceded, remembering ducking flying shards of glass and splintering wood from the shelving.  They were far from trained.

          But he was.  He was trained and skilled.  He could have shot to wound.

          J.D. hardly noticed when the front door closed.  He vaguely registered the Jag's engine sounding from the driveway.

          Josiah was looking at him.  "The man has a point."

          "I understand," J.D. said.  And he did.  Shooting to wound wasn't taught because if you have to shoot, you shoot to survive.  Shooting to wound could get a man killed.  He understood that.

          But he couldn’t help but think shooting to wound might also let a man live with himself.

          He thanked Josiah for the root beer and followed Ezra's trajectory to the front door.

          "For what it's worth," Josiah said quietly, as J.D. stepped out on the porch.  "It's worth a lot to us that you're standing here.  Whatever else you might wish to change, don't wish to change that."

          J.D. gave one startled look to Josiah. 

          "Thanks for the help, John Dunne," Josiah said matter of factly.

          J.D. supposed he should say the same.  But the door was already closed.

          He strapped his bag to the back of his motorcycle and pulled on his helmet.  The wind and rain would take care of most of the plaster dust, he decided as he straddled the bike.  He could shower and change before heading out to Casey's to begin tonight's schedule of distractions.  Until then, he mulled over Josiah's and Ezra's words as he steered his little bike along the gleaming streets and back toward the townhouse.

 

 

          Across a shiny black table, a motley conglomeration of talking heads debated the upcoming lawsuit on a local news station.  A beer can and a plate, empty except for crumbs, were gripped, forgotten in Buck's hands as he watched the television intently.

          "I agree the story is tragic," the woman on the end in the sharply tailored and delectably touchable brown suede jacket said.  Honey-colored hair streaked with lighter blonde framed an intelligent face.  Buck knew the hair color wasn't natural at her age, but that wasn't the point.  The point was how it brought out her green eyes, eyes that were right now snapping with indignation. 

          "Do you really think they can win this lawsuit by playing for sympathy for a poor single mother who has lost her only child?" she was asking.  She didn't wait for an answer, though, continuing on with more force.  "And if they can win it on sympathy alone, since so far we've yet to see a shred of evidence that the ATF agent acted improperly, do you really think that sets a good precedent?" 

          "You tell 'em," Buck said to the screen.  Then he groaned in dismay as Cyril D'Aprix, head of a local community action league began to discuss that maybe it was time for society to deal with the fallout of the failure of its programs and to face up to institutionalized racism, that this wasn't about one agent's actions so much as the failure of the whole of American society to acknowledge that it had put these children in this position. 

          "So what?" Buck asked the television.  "Their own bad choices don't count? Forget you," he said disgustedly and got up to take his plate to the kitchen and to recycle his beer can.  A key rattled in the front door lock.  J.D.  He reversed course immediately, cracking one shin on the coffee table as he slid on stocking feet to change the channel.

          "Hey!" he said brightly as J.D. came in, while Two and a Half Men and a laugh track played out on the screen behind him. 

          "Hey," J.D. answered back before disappearing into his room.  Buck gave some thought to trying to decipher the tone of that one syllable.  In the end, he decided there wasn't enough there to go on. 

          "How ya doin?" he shouted down the hall.

          "Fine," J.D. said flatly passing him again.  He was still standing in front of the couch with a plate and beer can. 

          J.D. disappeared into the bathroom. 

          Buck looked at the dishes in his hand and then at the closed bathroom door and back at the TV.  That woman seemed like a sharp little cookie, and he was curious what she was going to say to Cyril D'Aprix and the It's-All-Society's-Fault Chorus. 

          The muffled sound of water thundering into the tub decided for him.  He went back to watching the TV. 

          Sadly, the shower wasn't on for very long.

          Annoyed, Buck had to change the channel in the middle of a sentence.  He changed it back as soon as J.D.'s door at the end of the hall closed.

          From what he could gather, not one person sitting at the table, seemed to think Shana Morton and her lawyer could actually win their suit.  Not one.  Curiously, the very people who ought to care were much more interested in the precedent it could set, the way it could bring the problems of urban Denver and other similar cities back into the consciousness of the American public.  Apparently what was important here was not the people involved.  Oh no.  What was important here were the politics and social agenda.

          Buck threw the empty beer can at the TV. 

          When J.D. came out again, devoid of sawdust and wearing clean clothes, he found Buck sitting in the living room and scowling darkly at a blank TV screen and an empty beer can lying on the living room carpet.  He looked from Buck to the TV and back. 

          "Don't ask," Buck growled.

          "I wasn't going to," J.D. answered smartly and went straight out the front door. 

          A few hours later, Buck's bad mood had ebbed some, helped along by a bowl of ice cream and the cleavage of some woman in a blue dress introducing the next act on some show on a Spanish language channel.  He didn't speak or understand enough Spanish to understand what she was saying, but he refused to let that interfere with his enjoyment of the view. 

          Similarly, he tried not to let the sudden ringing of the phone interfere with it either. 

          At last, the phone settled into unanswered silence.  Then his cell phone started. 

          There was no way around answering that.  Chris would kill him.

          He grumbled to himself and groped his hands along the back of the couch for the jacket he threw there earlier.  It took him a few more rings to find the pocket with the phone in it.  He grabbed the phone and tried to shake off the jacket.  His eyes stayed fixed to the screen where the woman in the blue dress had moved off the stage in favor of a trio of young women dancing in costumes that threatened to give out and fall off at any second.

          "Yeah?" he said into the receiver, as the jacket fell to the floor.

          "You certainly took your time." Ezra's usually smooth voice held a peevish tone.  "What if I had been in some kind of trouble?"

          "You would have called Chris," Buck answered, tilting his head to the left for a better look at the dancer in the front.

          "But I didn't," Ezra griped.  "I called you."

          "Are you in trouble?" Buck asked somewhat absently.

          "At the moment, no," Ezra conceded.  "But I have a concern I'd like to discuss with you."

          Buck sighed. 

          "Is that your television I hear?" Ezra asked suddenly.

          "Yeah," Buck answered. 

          There was a pause and Buck tilted his head back to the right. 

          "It sounds like Spanish," Ezra said, confused. 

          "Yeah," Buck answered half a second later.  He had stopped listening after Ezra said he wasn't in trouble. 

          "You don't speak Spanish," Ezra said pointedly.

          "Ezra," Buck said testily.  "No offense here, but I've got better things to do than listen to you jaw all night.  Get to the point."

          "Fine," Ezra snapped back, clearly miffed.  "The point is this.  J.D. professed a ridiculous theory to Josiah regarding shooting to wound rather than shooting to kill."

          Buck was certain now that he hadn't been listening properly.  He turned the sound down.  "What?" he asked.

          "J.D. mentioned to Josiah that he thought he could have shot to wound instead of to kill," Ezra said, more slowly now and with evident aggravation.

          Buck tore his eyes off the TV and stared down at the phone.  He didn't know just what to say to that except maybe "That's crazy."  Which is what he said.  Because it was.

          "Exactly my point," Ezra said.  "You can see why I might be concerned."

          The woman in the blue dress was back in center screen.  He groped for the channel changer and clicked the off button.

          "I do not feel comfortable going back undercover when one of my backups has decided against the conventional wisdom of shooting to kill in favor of the dubious strategy of shooting to merely maim."

          Buck was still staring at the phone.

          "Are you there?" Ezra finally demanded.

          "Yeah, I'm here," Buck said.  "Are you sure you heard him correctly."

          He could hear Ezra's irritation right over the phone line.  "If you have concerns about my hearing or my grasp of the English language then you can call Josiah and confirm with him.  I am telling you right now that I want assurance this asinine idea has been laid completely to rest before I go under next week."

          _Shit_ , Buck thought.  "Did you say anything to Chris?"  He winced and waited for the answer.

          "If I had spoken to Chris, I would not have to call you," Ezra said as if that should have been obvious.

          Which it was.

          "Well don’t," Buck said quickly.  "I'll talk to him.  Or something."

          "You need to take care of this," Ezra said, his voice taking on a hard edge.  "Before I have to talk to Chris."

_Shit and shit._

          "I understand," Buck said smoothly.  "And I'll take care of it.  Just don't say anything to Chris yet."

          Ezra snorted.  "I understand your position," he said.  "I don't want to start a new op a man down either or have to explain to a new guy that our leader killed his predecessor.  But," he said, his voice losing all trace of sarcasm, "I'm not going in to set up the buy if I can't trust my backup.  And if I don't go in, Chris will know the reasons why."

          Buck couldn't exactly argue with that.  He rubbed his forehead with his thumb. 

          "I get it," Buck said.  "I'm on it.  I'll take care of it."

          "Fine," Ezra said, his tone more conciliatory than confident.  "I'll leave it in your capable hands."

          "For now," he added as an afterthought.

          _For now,_ Buck noted. 

          He hung up and banged his head several times against the back of the sofa.

          What the hell kind of bat shit crazy idea was shooting to wound?  Who the hell did that? 

          "Nobody who values their own life, that's for damn sure,"Buck muttered.

          On top of that, if Chris found out, he'd kill the kid for sure.  Or fire him.  Or both.

          Buck looked at his watch.  He didn't reasonably expect J.D. back until late, or maybe not at all. 

          His eyes strayed toward the door.  He needed some air.  He needed some time to think before confronting J.D. in the morning.  He needed a plan.

          He'd settle for some decent distraction instead. 

          After all, it wasn't like he could talk to J.D. about it now.

          He might as well get good and distracted.  Besides, it might stimulate his strategic creativity. 

          That sounded plausible. 

          So he went with it.

 

 

          J.D. knew it was a bad idea.  And he knew all the reasons why it was a bad idea.  But he couldn't get it out of his head. 

          Casey had just about outdone herself trying to distract him, and distracted he was, but not in the way she wanted. 

          Some time during dinner it occurred to him that he could ask Vin whether snipers ever shot to wound.  But then again, it might be better to try to find his answers on the internet instead of enduring another possible litany of reasons why it was a bad idea, when he already knew that.  What he wanted to know was whether anyone had tried it.  He was sure there must be some research out there.  He couldn’t possibly be the only person to wonder about the strategy's real-world application and viability.

          It was right after that thought when J.D. caught Casey frowning at him, the corners of her mouth turned down into a frown that J.D. privately considered cute as heck.  Then he remembered he was supposed to keep talking so Casey wouldn't keep worrying about where his head was.  He stuttered out some question and tried to keep his mind on the answer.

          It was a lovely moonlit night, tailor-made for porch swings, which was where they ended up, Casey leaning against him and his arms circling her.  Moonlight silvered over Nettie's land.  And Casey's face seemed to shine with its own light.  She was too tempting not to kiss.  And that kept him focused to her satisfaction. 

          For a time.

          He was looking up at the stars and listening to the melody of her voice rising and falling as she talked, when he realized that he had lost track of what she was telling him.  Instead, a list of potential research sites was chugging across the center of his mind.  He pulled his attention back to her story, but Casey already had that exasperated look.

          He apologized, and her eyes got that soft, sad expression they took on lately when she wasn't trying to pretend everything was just wonderful and it was possible not to think about big events, tragedies, and the long-term effects on a person's career.  He had come to hate that look more than he would ever dare tell her.

          He would have like to tell her his distracted state didn't have anything to do with her, but he didn't think that would go over well. 

          She kept telling him he could tell her anything.  He could share what was on his mind.  But he couldn't share this.  She wouldn't understand this idea.  The whole shooting incident had scared her.  His job scared her—but she would never admit it. 

          She let out a breath of frustration.

          He wondered if maybe she needed to not think about it, too.  "I'm sorry, Case," he said.  "I guess I wandered for a sec."

          She put her hands on the sides of his face and forced him to look at her, and he shoved that list farther into the back of his mind.  He could work on the problem later.

          J.D. tightened his arms around her.  "I'm all yours now.  I promise."

          She pressed her lips to his before he could get distracted again. 

          The apartment was blessedly silent when J.D. got home.  No Buck waiting up for him like some relentless, hairy dorm mother.  He hoped the man would be out for quite a while. 

          J.D. grabbed a soda from the fridge and went to fire up his laptop. 

          Some hours later he awoke to find his face smushed against his desk and his fingers still splayed across his keyboard an empty soda can at his elbow. 

          He peered blearily at the screen, which came obediently back from darkness when he tapped the touchpad.  He saved the sites he had been looking at. 

          Vindicated.  Elated.  According to the rest of the world, the proposition of law enforcement officers shooting to kill was an item of serious public contention.  Not only was there a basis in precedent for shooting to wound, a number of countries didn't even equip their cops with guns until the last decade or so. 

          J.D. raised both arms in silent victory and powered down his computer.

          Ezra and his know-it-all attitude could kiss his ass.

          He set the alarm for early.  Even if that meant there were only a few hours left between climbing into his bed and getting out of it again.  There was another step to his investigation, though.  And he needed to get out of the house early to put his plan into action. 

          It occurred to J.D. as his head hit the pillow how strange it was that reading about public outcry in far-flung places over use of deadly force by other cops facing other criminals made him feel a little less alone.

 

 

          The alarm had barely let out its first annoying beep before J.D. slammed a hand down and silenced it.  Already he was wired, wide awake and ready.  And maybe a little frayed at the edges.  But that didn't matter. 

          He was quiet, so he wouldn’t wake Buck.  Assuming Buck had come home last night.  Sometimes he didn't.  But J.D. didn't bother to check.  It was better this way.  Encountering an awake Buck Wilmington might cause him to slip up and say something about his plan.  And there was no way he wanted to hear a speech from Buck like the earful he got from Ezra yesterday.  At least not until he had had a chance to see for himself how the idea worked. 

 

 

          Buck staggered into work not far off his usual arrival time—and proud of it.  It was the good kind of exhausted, he reported cheerily to the guard on duty at the entrance.  His conscience had given him a brief treatise on the very good reasons why he might not stay out quite so late on a school night, but he told his conscience to go take a flying leap.  After all, he actually made it home at the end of the night.  That had to be self-control enough to satisfy anyone.

          Buck pulled up short when he realized J.D. had not arrived.  He frowned.

          "You seen J.D.?" he asked Vin, who was flipping through an equipment catalog of some kind.  Whether for work or pleasure Buck didn't know.  One could never be too sure with Vin.

          "Not yet," Vin answered without looking up.

          Buck grunted out his consternation. 

          Chris came out of his office, a fat set of manila folders stacked up under one arm.

          Vin's and Buck's heads swiveled toward him. 

          "Travis," Chris answered the unspoken question, using the stack of folders to point toward the door. 

          "You gonna be gone long?" Buck asked. 

          "Yes," Chris said shortly.  Then he disappeared.

          Buck glowered at the desk it looked like he might be tied to for the next several hours, if Chris was right.  And when it came to calculating how much more of his life was about to be used up in useless meetings, he usually was.

          Buck took stock. 

          Nathan had the team's training folders open on his desk, and was consulting a small pocket calendar and talking on the phone at the same time.  This did not bode well.  Buck didn't bother to ask if he had seen J.D.

          He had no idea where Josiah had gone off to, but his standard threadbare tweed jacket hung over the back of his chair, which indicated Sanchez had some kind of meeting scheduled for some time today.

          When Ezra swept in before J.D., Buck felt his concern rise a little.

          "Mornin' Ez," Buck said, stifling a yawn.

          Ezra must not have slept well either, as his reply was uncharacteristically terse.

          "Did you talk to him?" Ezra demanded before he even got his coat off.

          "Now, Ezra," Buck started.

          "It's a simple question," Ezra carped.  "Did you talk to him or not?"

          "Talk to who?  About what?" Vin asked, too busy scribbling down a product number from a dog-eared page to actually look up.

          "No," Buck replied testily, ignoring Vin.  "I haven't had a chance."

          "Haven't had a chance?" Ezra asked in disbelief.  He had removed his overcoat and was busy straightening his sleeves.  "You live in the same house.  How much time did you need?"

          Vin looked up from the catalog and eyed his two teammates.  "Talk to J.D. about what?" he asked.

          Ignoring Vin, Buck leaned over his desktop toward Ezra and lowered his voice. 

          "Just because we live in the same house don't mean I'm stuck to him like stink on shit," Buck replied to Ezra.

          "Oh that's lovely, Mr. Wilmington," Ezra said, wrinkling his face in disgust.  "Very witty and office appropriate."

          Nathan, still on the phone, pressed the fingers of his free hand against his free ear. 

          "Talk to J.D. about what?" Vin interrupted.

          "Never mind," Buck snapped shortly at Vin.

          "Never mind, is it?" Ezra retorted, his voice rising.

          "I haven't even seen him today," Buck shot back at Ezra.

          But Ezra was now talking to Vin.  "Tell me, Mr. Tanner, at your venerable Ranger sniper training, did they teach you to shoot to wound?"

          Buck growled.

          "What?" Vin asked.  He shoved the catalog away from him, his face plainly wearing the question of whether he had heard right.

          "Ezra…" Buck said, his voice clearly a warning.

          Ezra's return stare was decidedly icy.  "Well, Mr. Tanner," he prompted smoothly, his eyes frozen on Buck's face. 

          "No," Vin replied, staring at Buck now, too.

          "And I'm not going undercover until this is either resolved, or J.D. is removed from my backup team," Ezra said, and from the set of his face, he wasn't kidding.

          Vin glanced over at Ezra and then back at Buck.

          "I heard you last night and I hear you again," Buck snapped.  "All I'm asking is that you keep your damn trap shut until I've had a chance to talk to him."

          "Any idea when you'll be able to work that into your busy schedule?" Ezra bit out sarcastically.

          Nathan's voice, floating over them from his cubicle, rose another few notches in volume.  Talking to someone named Dan evidently.

          Buck tried to catch which Dan it might be.

          "Did you try talking to him yourself?" Vin said to Ezra.

          "I believe I made my opinion of this asinine idea quite clear," Ezra said through his teeth.

          "That ain't the same as talkin' to him," Vin retorted.

          "I'll take care of it," Buck growled out his frustration, drilling first into Ezra and then into Vin with hard blue eyes.  Jesus!  Did the whole building need to know what bullshit idea had crawled into J.D.'s head?  You'd think for all that J.D. had done for them, as one of their team, as a brother in arms, they would give the kid a chance to do something to get his head adjusted before Chris Larabee had to kill him.  That, on top of everything else.

          Ezra broke the stare first. 

          "Fine," he said. 

          It was harder to stare Vin down.  But in the end the sharpshooter shook his head and went back to writing down numbers on his yellow pad.

          Buck glowered at Tanner a moment or two longer for good measure. 

          Vin had backed down, but just because Vin didn't choose to speak what was on his mind, didn't mean that Buck couldn't hear the wheels turning.  Or see the way the man's jaw was clenched tight—like Chris when he had something he just didn't want to have to say.

          Nathan's phone clunked down into its cradle.  He strode to the printer, muttering to himself and yanked a stack of papers out of the tray.  He sifted through them, stopping to give one of them a particularly long glower.

          Then he turned to Buck.

          "You lookin' for J.D.?" Nathan asked.

          Three pairs of eyes flicked up to him.

          He threw the printout down on Buck's desk.

          Firing range stats.  Seven o' clock this morning.  Oh, that Dan. 

          Buck read through them with growing disbelief.

          "What's Petersen going to do with these?"  Buck asked hesitantly.

          "Throw them out," Nathan grunted.  He looked at Buck.  "I told him J.D. was doing a test for us."

          Buck exhaled.

          "I don't like lying," Nathan said flatly.  "So why don't you save me the trouble of reporting those crappy scores to Chris by telling me just what J.D. was trying to do down there."

          Buck felt a slow burn begin at the back of his head.  At the rate it was going, maybe the whole damn Bureau would know about J.D.'s bullshit idea.

 

 

          It was well after nine o'clock, when J.D. finally came in.

          He threw his jacket over the back of his chair and didn't seem to notice when Ezra swiveled partway away from him or when Vin glanced up from his catalog without saying a word or when Nathan regarded him balefully before looking at Buck.  Josiah noticed, though, leaning back in his chair and watching his teammates thoughtfully.

          Buck was too busy scanning J.D. to give heed to any of them.  He looked frayed.  His eyes were glassy.  But he practically vibrated with a weird hyperkinetic energy.

          "Where you been?" Buck drawled and hoped it didn't sound as tense to J.D. as it did to his own ears.

J.D. gave a glance to Chris's empty office before shrugging. "Testing out a theory," he said and gave a tense smile.

          Coming from J.D., it wasn't that unusual a statement. 

          Ezra and Vin looked pointedly away.  Nathan shook his head at his training rosters.  Buck gritted his teeth. 

          J.D. was still oblivious.  "Anyone want coffee?" he asked, heading around the desks into the kitchenette.

          Their eyes followed J.D. into the kitchen and then all fell on Buck.

          "Your move, Mr. Wilmington," Ezra said darkly, gesturing toward the kitchenette with one hand.

          Buck sent his swear words to Ezra by telepathy, but he couldn't much argue with the facts.  Hell, he even agreed with them.

          He got up out of his chair, gave one baleful glare around the bullpen and gestured pointedly at the work on their desks.  He went into the kitchenette.

          J.D. startled badly, spilling coffee all over himself, the counter, and the floor when the door shut.

          "What are you doing?" he demanded of Buck.

          In all his time on the team, J.D. couldn't remember that door ever being shut.  In fact, until now, he was pretty certain he'd forgotten the kitchenette even had a door.  He certainly wasn't aware that the back side of it was an ugly orange or that it bore a map of fire exits and two bumper stickers that J.D. couldn't read on account of Buck's frame standing in the way.  Standing in the way and glaring at him in a way that didn't seem to bode well for his morning.

          He didn't have time to try to figure out why.

          "What the hell are you thinking?" Buck demanded.

          "What?" J.D. asked, so taken aback he was still holding the mostly-empty coffee cup.

          "Where were you this morning?" Buck continued, advancing one step closer.

          "I told you," J.D. said hotly.  His voice faltered.  "I was testing out a theory."

          "I know about your bullshit theory," Buck answered, his voice low. 

          J.D. glowered at him.  Was there anyone on the team who didn't go blabbing his business?

          Sometimes J.D. forgot how tall Buck was.  Until moments like this when he was suddenly keenly aware of having to look up.  He stepped back, but the counter stopped him.

          "It's not a bullshit theory," J.D. said standing his ground.

          Buck stared at him like he had just grown a horn.  "Of all the—"

          J.D. cut him off.  "Shooting to wound has precedent in a number of respected countries around the world."

          "Not ours," Buck retorted. 

          "Well ours isn't the only country that matters," J.D. shot back.

          "It is if it's the country you're shooting at criminals in," Buck growled out, stepping into J.D.'s space. 

          J.D. realized too late that maybe his best bet would have been to remain silent.

          Buck shook a paper at J.D.  With all the shaking, it took J.D. a few moments to figure out what it was.  His stats from the range.

          "So you went to the range with this stupid idea of yours?"  Buck wasn't really asking.  He was clarifying.  Like an attorney, J.D. noted suddenly.  And it was sounding more like the prosecution than the defense.

          J.D. glared right back.  "Where else am I going to test a theory about shooting?" 

          Buck's eyes narrowed, taking on a humorless glimmer.  "And how'd that go?" he asked icily. 

          J.D. looked down at the cup still in his hands, and still dripping coffee on the carpet and his shoes.  He turned to put it back on the counter.

          J.D. told himself he didn't have to answer.  Buck had the scores in his hand.  He knew damn well how it had gone. 

          Slow. 

          It was hard to change reflexes honed by years of training.  But one set of scores didn't mean it wasn't a good idea.  Ask the non-Americans in an uproar over the increase in shooting deaths at the hands of their newly-armed police.  Ask the New York City lawmakers who wanted to make it harder for police to use deadly force. 

          This was only a first test.  It was too early to junk a theory just on one test.

          J.D. gathered his reasoned arguments and turned back to face Buck.

          Buck had let the anger fade from his face.  "Kid," he said, his hand coming up toward J.D.'s shoulder. 

          Something in J.D.'s head snapped. 

          "I'm not a kid," he snarled, hands moving to block Buck so fast they almost seemed to blur, contacting the bigger man hard and shoving him out of his space. 

          Buck's eyes flew wide, caught off guard for just a moment.  He backpedaled and J.D. came toward him.

          "I'm a goddamn federal agent, same as the rest of you." J.D. growled fiercely.  "Not a kid.  Stop treating me like one."

          Buck threw up both hands, palm out, damping down on years-old instincts and training.  Placating.  And hoping J.D. wasn't about to force him to defend himself. 

          But J.D. just shouldered past him.  Then he flung open the door and was gone.

          Buck stood there, still trying to digest what had just happened, J.D.'s words still ringing in his ears.

          "That went well," Ezra muttered darkly as Buck emerged.  He got up from his desk and pulled his jacket off his chair.

          "Where are you going?" Buck demanded.

          "To do what I should have done first," Ezra snarled, glaring hard at Vin before storming out after his teammate.

          Worry filled Buck's face as he turned back to Vin.

          "He's just going to talk to J.D.," Vin said calmly.  "Chris is still in a meeting anyway."

          "Which brings up a good point," Nathan inserted.  "At what point do you think Chris is going to need to know about this?"

          Buck didn't answer.  Chris was going to be pissed no matter what.  J.D.'s best hope of not being sidelined—or worse—was to handle it now.  Before Chris had to get involved.  Then Chris would only have to be pissed at Buck for not telling him.

          Buck figured he could handle that.

 

 


	8. Chapter 8

          It took Ezra a little time to ferret out J.D.'s whereabouts.  After all, it was  a big building with lots of places a person could hide if he really wanted to.  Ezra, had he been in J.D.'s shoes, would have left the building for some more gratifying location, less filled with people scratching up against his raw nerves.  And he would not have returned until he was good and ready—and had been gone long enough to make his point clearly. 

          J.D., however, was not Ezra.  Or any of the others for that matter.  He would not leave the building on duty hours.  That would go against his innate forthright, honest, and earnest character.  J.D. got antsy when they overstayed the allotted lunch time.  Thus, J.D.'s temporary refuge would be a location as far from Team Seven's bullpen and any of its denizens as was possible but in which J.D. still had some justifiable responsibilities to be addressing.  Yes, even angry as a hornet, J.D. would still be doing his job.  On a rare day, Ezra might grudgingly admit to himself that there was something admirable about that—but he would never profess it out loud.  It did, however, significantly narrow down the number of places J.D. could have absconded to. 

          Ezra congratulated himself on his prodigious investigative abilities as he loitered in a hallway outside the IT office wing.  He was waiting for J.D. to finish his business—and hopefully have blown off a little steam—before he took the bull by the horns.  It wasn't likely to be a pleasant conversation, Ezra reflected.  But on the other hand, it would be an infinitely more pleasant conversation than the one he would have to have with Chris Larabee if he asked for last minute changes to the mission lineup—or the mission itself—because of J.D.'s sudden, asinine compassion for the kinds of sociopathic thugs who were likely to shoot at them. 

          While he waited, Ezra considered a better way to word that when he finally did get hold of J.D.'s ear.

          Patience was rewarded.  J.D. finally emerged from IT. 

          He drew up short when he saw Ezra waiting for him.  The look he gave Ezra was composed of equal parts anger and suspicion.

          Ezra peeled himself from the wall and came forward with palms spread, as J.D. wound up with, "If Buck sent you here to talk to me, you can just tell him--"

          Insulted, Ezra interrupted him.  "Buck most certainly did not send me anywhere," he said indignantly.  "I came here strictly on my own behalf.  Not at Mr. Wilmington's or anyone else's behest."

          J.D. looked unconvinced.  "No one sent you?"

          "I believe I just made that clear?" Ezra said testily, resisting the strong urge to roll his eyes.

          J.D. regarded him with narrowed eyes.

          Ezra stood the scrutiny, waiting a moment before beginning carefully, "However, I may not have been quite as clear yesterday evening at Josiah's."

          J.D.'s eyes got a fraction harder.  "I think you made yourself pretty clear there, too," he said flatly. 

          Ezra let out a sigh.  "My opinion of the idea has not changed," he said. 

          "Ezra," J.D. said tartly.  "I've got stuff to do besides stand here and listen to you or anyone else tell me—again—how stupid you think the idea of avoiding the use of deadly force is."

          "That's not at all what I am saying," Ezra retorted.  "And if you'd let me finish, I will clarify what I meant."

          J.D.'s face was a mask of distrust.

          Ezra blew out a breath and swallowed a bitter piece of his pride.  "Rather," he said, "I will clarify what I should have said."

          J.D. folded his arms over his chest.  "Go ahead," he said.

          A door banged open behind J.D.  Two techs, laughing and jostling each other pushed past them and up the hallway, as if they were not there at all.

          The elevator dinged.  The fluorescent light glinted off the badge of a passing FBI agent.

          Ezra shifted his stance and lowered his voice.  "Could we discuss this somewhere less…," he waved a hand at the hallway around him and the retreating back of the agent moving up the hall, "less federal?"

          J.D. frowned.  Of course he would frown.  Diligence and duty and all that.  "I would prefer," Ezra explained, "not to talk about your idea or my concerns about it in a place where it could be overheard and taken back to people that you and I would both prefer knew nothing about all this."

          J.D.'s lips twisted.  "Just because you think the idea's stupid, doesn't mean everybody thinks it's stupid," J.D. countered. 

          "J.D.," Ezra said through his teeth.  "Work with me.  For both our sakes."

          He must have finally made himself clear, for J.D. uncrossed his arms and gestured, albeit reluctantly, for Ezra to lead on. 

          He did.  To Starbucks, which was close enough to being on Bureau property to keep J.D. from getting too antsy, at least until Ezra had a chance to say his piece.

          They took a tiny table away from the window in as back a corner as one could get in a tiny coffee shop with glass fronts on two sides.  Ezra gestured graciously for J.D. to sit and he ordered at the counter.

          "I don't need coffee," J.D. pointed out when Ezra set one of the coffees down in front of him. 

          Ezra set a pair of warm scones down on the table, too.

          "I'm not hungry either."

          "Think of it as being under cover," Ezra snapped.  He lowered his voice as he lowered himself into a chair.  "Drink your coffee.  Eat your scone.  Act like you're supposed to be here and just listen."

          J.D. slouched back in his chair with an expression that could only be described as dubious.  He didn't touch the coffee or the scones, but he did appear to be listening, so Ezra seized the moment. 

          It took a bit of thought to properly formulate his concerns without coming across as judgmental.  J.D. would hardly sit still for something too prepared or too easy.  Plus, his conscience chided him, J.D. would expect honesty.

          It wasn't easy to get down to the hard heart of the matter.  And for the vast majority of people, Ezra wouldn't even have tried.  He didn't care to admit that going undercover often gave him less of a thrill than he liked for people to believe.  He didn't like to open the door to admit, even to himself, that there might be an occasional crack in his bravado, his composure and self-assurance.  To admit that was to invite those cracks to open wider.  He especially did not like to admit, although he was fairly certain the others knew anyway, that part of his confidence in his own success was due to knowing the men who stood behind him would make his own safety their first priority.  It was no secret that he had little confidence in the abilities of other people besides his own team to watch his back.

          Ezra abhorred gambling, particularly with his life and future, and liked to leave nothing to chance.  Since that was impossible given his chosen profession, his only recourse was to make a practice of leaving as little as possible open to the vagaries of probability.  His team knew him as well as he knew them.  They knew how to read each other's movements and understood which way to jump—and therefore, and of utmost importance, when and how to get out of the way.  Having his own team at his back significantly lessened the variables inherent in infiltrating the tight circles of paranoid criminals, thus significantly lessening the probability that Ezra Standish would become another casualty of the profession.  He did not aspire to be a picture on any Bureau's Wall of Honor. 

          All that, however, was far more honest than Ezra was willing to be outside of his own head.  The best he could do was be frank. 

          "J.D.," he said.  "I’ve been working this assignment for more than a month, and I'm going back under tonight to broker the buy drop and the final capture to close not one but two cases.  I want the people I know best, the people I trust most, at my back." 

          J.D. opened his mouth to speak, but Ezra wasn't finished.

          "When it is time to act out there, whether the bust goes bad, or there's a change in tactics, or even if it goes exactly as planned, I want to know that the agents who back me up are going to do their job the way I expect them to, the way I need them to."

          He stared hard at J.D.  "Do you understand?"

          "Shoot, Ezra," J.D. said with a sudden lopsided grin.  "You know nothing ever goes off exactly as planned."

          He supposed J.D. was trying to lighten the mood.  Taking a page from the Buck Wilmington playbook.  Nevertheless, this was not a comforting thought. 

          "All the more reason," he said grimly, "why I need to implicitly trust the people who back me up."

          J.D.'s head tilted sideways.  "You don't trust me?" he asked slowly.

          This was not going the way Ezra had hoped.  "You will concede, there's a certain potentially lethal risk involved in second-guessing oneself in a firefight.  Or in the stages directly preceding one."  Lord, he hoped that didn't sound as sarcastic as he thought it did.

          The head tilted a fraction further and J.D.'s mouth pulled tight at the corners.  "Answer my question," he said.  His voice was quiet but the volume made the demand no less harsh.

          Ezra hesitated, then hedged.  "I want to trust you."

          J.D.'s dark eyebrows knit together.  His lips pulled thinner still.  "But you don't think you can." 

          Ezra winced to hear it as a statement rather than a question. 

          He leaned forward, halfway across the table, a gesture of conciliation.  He drew a mindless squiggle across the tabletop with one finger as he tried to worm his words around that bald statement, but whether Ezra wanted to admit to it or not that was the simple truth.  Worse yet, of the two of them, J.D. was the only one man enough to face it.

          "I don't trust this idea of yours," Ezra answered.  That was better.  It sounded less personal that way.

          J.D. leaned forward, too, covering the remaining half space between them.  Hazel eyes glittering, he hissed out, "Because I'm willing to consider that there might be a better, safer way for law enforcement professionals to deal with potentially violent situations in the future, you can't trust me to watch your back on an op that starts tomorrow?"

          Even hushed, the raw disbelief in J.D.'s tone was unmistakable.

          Ezra looked away, avoiding his teammate's eyes.  "I don't know what to think," he said, eyes still steadily regarding the plastic-topped table.  "But the night before I make contact is the wrong time to not know what to think." 

          "Unbelievable," J.D. spat out, tilting backward sharply in his chair.  "Fucking unbelievable."

          Ezra flinched.  J.D. didn't swear that often. 

          If there was more he wanted to say, it was lost in a bitter laugh.

          Ezra's glance strayed to the clock.  Time was ticking.  He was either going to have to make the decision to say nothing and trust that J.D. would act as he had been trained to act—or that he would not be tested at all.  Or Ezra was going to have to ask Chris to make a last-minute change to the plans, knowing as they all did that last-minute changes could kill a plan entirely. 

          Better the plan than the agent on the inside, he reminded himself.

          Ezra cleared his throat.  "I want to know I can count on you, the way I always have.  Exactly the way I always have."

          "I guess you have to decide that for yourself," J.D. snapped..

          That was not what Ezra had hoped to hear.

          Maybe J.D. could not quite understand Ezra's professional options here—and their ramifications for the team as a whole or for Ezra and J.D. individually. 

          But J.D. wasn't finished yet.  He had more to say, and unlike Ezra, J.D. seemed very clear about what he wanted Ezra to understand.  "I could sit here and tell you that nothing's changed," he said.  "But I'd be lying, and we'd both know it.  I could tell you, you can trust me, but I can't make you believe it.  So I guess all I can really tell you is that I'm trained, same as you, to do my job, same as you.  I know how to do my job, same as you.  And I'm damn good at it, same as you or anyone else on this team. "

          J.D. sat back in his chair, "If you can't believe that, then I'm not going to sit here and waste my breath.  Or my time."

          J.D. shoved his chair back from the table.  It made a harsh screech against the floor.

          Then suddenly he loomed over Ezra, the smile on his lips, pure and bitter poison.  "Is that what you told Buck,too?"  . 

          Ezra didn't answer.

          "That you didn't think you could trust me to watch your back," J.D. added, giving the knife a little twist. 

          Poetic justice, Ezra thought, to be done in with his own knife.

          Ezra was forced to look up to answer.  "I told him about your idea and that I had a concern," Ezra said evenly, poker face pulled neatly into place.  He would not apologize for bringing his concerns to his team's chain of command.

          "If you were in my position," Ezra asked as calmly as possible, "would you trust you?"

          He thought he knew the answer. 

          All the sleepless nights in J.D.'s face, the condemnations and voices calling for another kind of justice, the very idea that he should not have shot to kill, all told Ezra the answer. 

          J.D., however, shook his head, that bitter little smile still frozen on his face.  "As far as I know, I've never given anyone reason not to trust me," he said acidly.  "Can you say the same?"  Then he walked away. 

          It was a cheap shot.  But Ezra didn't even get a chance at a comeback.  J.D.'s back was completely impervious to his angry glare. 

          Then he was left alone.  With only himself to reason with.

          Yes, J.D. had been second-guessing himself at every turn.  Should he have shot to wound instead of shooting to kill?  Should he have shot at those boys at all?  Should he have just settled the lawsuit?

          But second-guessing was normal, Ezra reminded himself.  And even contemplating an idea as suicidally stupid as shooting to wound didn't mean J.D. would let anyone hurt someone he cared about.  J.D. Dunne would fling himself head first into bodily harm before he let some common criminal hurt someone he cared about. 

          J.D. knew as well as anyone that shooting to wound wasn't going to keep the bad guys from firing back.  And when the criminal element fired back, they generally didn't settle for wounding.

          However, J.D. was not well-versed in shouldering the kind of guilt and blame he was wearing right now.  It wore on a person.  It rattled them badly.  It could have a strange effect on their thinking.

          Ezra stayed and drank his coffee, replaying the conversation in his head, and wondering why he was the one who felt guilty. 

          His mistake, he decided at length, was in his choice of strategy.  Honest and earnest had never been his strong suits.  He should have led with glib, charming, and persuasive.  Then maybe he would have had a chance.  Then maybe J.D. might have simply come right around to his way of thinking. 

          Or maybe he should have simply extracted a simple promise. 

          _Promise me, Mr. Dunne, no matter what your current convictions on the subject of use of deadly force, that if use of force, deadly or otherwise, upon my person seems imminent, you will, by all means, shoot to kill._

          Would that have been so hard to say?

          He pushed his cup disgustedly aside, pocketed the two scones, and went through the glass doors, exactly as J.D. had minutes before.  In no better frame of mind than when he had come in.

          Ezra barely had time to get back into the bullpen before Buck accosted him. 

          "What the hell did you say to him?" Buck hissed out, grabbing Ezra by one arm.

          Ezra yanked his arm indignantly out of the bigger man's grasp, but he didn't have time to offer a suitable retort before Larabee materialized in the bullpen doorway like an apparition.

          "Conference room," he barked out, not even stopping to drop off his arm full of folders in his office.  He didn't even cover the three strides to the conference door before he demanded, "Where's J.D.?"

          "Right here!" J.D. called out, also materializing from the hallway.  A padded silver case dangled from one hand, the kind usually reserved for incredibly delicate electronics or incredibly destructive weapons.

          "Good," Chris said approvingly.  Whether the approval was for J.D.'s timely appearance or for getting on with the next item on his agenda without suffering another delay, Ezra was not sure.

          Buck huffed out a breath that said "good" was not a term he would apply at the moment.  "After you," he said sarcastically to Ezra and gestured toward the conference room door.

          Vin, meanwhile, did not hesitate to slide in ahead of them both.

          "Remind me not to listen to you in the future," Ezra growled out at the sharpshooter's back.

          Vin turned only enough for Ezra to hear him answer, "I said you should talk to him.  Pissing him off was your own idea."

          Then Nathan and Josiah were jostling impatiently behind them both and Buck was practically herding him into the conference room.

          Chris had the lights off and the ceiling projector up already and was dealing manila folders around the table.  Vin unrolled two different sets of blueprints out onto the table.  Opposite Vin, J.D. set down his silver case, with an almost affectionate stroke across its shiny surface.  He didn't look at Ezra. 

          "Josiah," Chris said, handing him another stack of folders.  Ezra recognized the names on the tabs as Josiah passed a matching set to each man on the team. 

          Josiah cleared his throat, asked them each to flip open the first folder and proceeded to give a detailed run-down of the arrests, convictions, reputations, psychological tendencies, criminal resumes, and useful weaknesses of the person in each file, all the way down to Ephraim St. Leger, who didn't exist—and wouldn't until later on tonight.

          "Nice mug shot," Buck snickered, looking at the photo on the first page.

          Ezra did not dignify that with a comment.  Nor did he respond to the whistles and catcalls over his cover id's list of convictions.

          He and Josiah had designed his identity together.  It was a part Ezra knew he could pull off and it was the kind of person Omar Colón, their key target, was likely to take a shine to. 

          Vin took the floor after Josiah, and ran the whole team through detailed 2-D and 3-D video renderings and actual video footage of two different sites.  It would be Ezra's job to convince Colón to store his illegal merchandise in one of them.  It was important to let  Colón make the choice.  Colón took no one's advice but his own.  For the plan to work, Colón had to believe he had chosen the site himself.

          Chris took over from Vin, outlining each man's role and responsibilities, starting with while Ephraim St. Leger brokered the buy for Colón and right up to the time of the actual bust. 

          It was a nice, neat plan.  Intricately woven together.  It sounded downright foolproof.  But Ezra knew as well as anyone on the team that good plans went directly south as soon as you made contact with the enemy.

          Still, a good plan had a lot of built in backups.  And Chris was good at necessary redundancies.  He didn't like to leave anything up to chance either, which was one the facets about the man that Ezra professionally appreciated.

          When he got to surveillance, Chris handed the helm to Buck, who stopped swiveling in his chair and consulted his notes. 

          "J.D. and I will be in the surveillance van," Buck explained.  "Colón is a slippery little snake and he's got a smart little lawyer in his pocket.  So recording audio and video and preserving it for evidence is going to be important to make the charges stick."

          Chris leveled a pointed look at Ezra before he told the entire team—with painstakingly clear enunciation, Ezra noted, "That means avoid all possible appearances of entrapment".

          Ezra did not dignify that with a response either.  This was too important and too dangerous a bust to even think about playing it too close to the foul lines.

          Buck's fingers played with the edge of the paper in front of him.  "J.D.'s got some new equipment to tell you about."

          They all turned their attention to J.D. just the same.  As he opened up his silver box, his bad mood was temporarily subsumed by his youthful enthusiasm as he introduced his team to the smallest and most sensitive digitally transmitting device he could get without venturing into classified territory.  It was so new it wasn't even on the market.  But he and Buck had given it a thorough going over in the days leading up to J.D.'s presentation to the brass. 

          J.D. rattled off a list of technical specs that Ezra didn't even pretend to follow.  Nor did he digest much of the list of technical updates in the audio/visual surveillance systems of the team van.

          He felt a twinge of guilt about that.  Then he reminded himself that it wasn't J.D.'s technical abilities that had him concerned. 

          J.D. looked positively pleased with himself.  If anyone else's eyes had glazed over at the tech specs, they were hiding it well.  Even Chris, who only ever wanted to know if it would work and if it would give them what they needed, leaned back in his chair and managed to look thoughtful, only the way his pen tapped absently up and down against the folder under his hand betrayed any impatience. 

          Then Chris turned back to Buck.  "And when the bust goes down?"

          Ezra's ears pricked up.  This was indeed something he was interested in, as at the moment of the bust, he was likely to be the most exposed.  In the event that he couldn't finagle a reason to excuse himself, Ezra didn't much like the idea of being two team members down when the shooting was likely to start.

          "I'll join up with Josiah," Buck answered.  He flashed a brief grin at the profiler.  "Figure he's likely to need some help on that squeeze play since you and Nathan have the other exits."

          Buck hesitated a beat.  "That leaves J.D. in the van to finish up."

          J.D. looked startled.  Buck gave him an uneasy glance.

          Chris didn't seem to notice.  He just nodded his head in agreement.  Ezra wondered if Chris had consigned J.D. to remain in the van for a reason.  Did he know about J.D.'s current ideological conflict?  But Ezra couldn't figure a point at which Chris would have had reason to discover J.D.'s recent journey into the debate surrounding law enforcement's use of deadly force.  Then again, it wouldn't be the first time Chris knew things he shouldn't have known. 

          Ezra tried to assure himself that if Chris had doubts about J.D.'s state of mind, he would act on it, not just let it ride—even in the van.  Chris Larabee wouldn’t fool around when his agents' lives were on the line.  Would he?

          Chris was looking at Ezra now, an odd look on his face. 

          Ezra hurriedly composed his own expression. 

          On the other side of the table, J.D. was glaring at Buck. 

          Chris either didn't notice or was ignoring him.  "Ezra?" Chris asked.  "You have questions?"

          He had questions all right.  And he should have asked them before this meeting.  He cleared his throat and swallowed and scrambled to find something neutral to ask J.D., whose face had taken on a tinge of pink. 

          From the corner of his eye, Ezra noticed Buck was trying to communicate something to J.D., whose face only got angrier.

          Chris's eyes twitched back toward Buck.

          Ezra cleared his throat.  "So, this new transmitter is thoroughly compatible with all our equipment?" Ezra asked.  He winced inwardly and hoped that sounded like a reasonable question.

          "Like I said," J.D. answered impatiently, glare still fixed on Buck.  "I've upgraded almost all of our equipment, and Buck and I have been testing and working with the transmitters for a couple of weeks.  In fact, it's fully automated." 

          Buck swiveled his chair around to look at Ezra as he added, "Me and J.D.'ll run you through everything you need to know this afternoon.  By tonight, you'll be one of only three experts in the world:  the guy who miniaturized it, J.D., and me."

          Buck gave a self-satisfied smile that didn't fool Ezra. 

          J.D.'s hot gaze swiveled to Chris.  "I have a question," he said.

          Subtlety was still not J.D.'s strong suit..

          Nathan's eyes snapped to J.D.  Then he glanced nervously toward Josiah, who watched with that rapt fascination he sometimes got when he went into impartial observer mode.  Vin flashed a look that reminded Ezra of a deer in headlights all the way around the table.  He and Buck both shook their heads ever so slightly in J.D.'s direction, to no avail. 

          As Chris turned toward J.D., Buck grimaced.  Vin suddenly found the top of the table very interesting. 

          "Don't you think we need every man possible on the inside when we make the arrest and seizure?" J.D. asked, anger bleeding right through his tone.

          Ezra felt the back of his own neck flush in sympathy, as Chris's eyes widened with surprise and narrowed again in almost the same moment.

          He glanced toward Buck, who consulted his notes.

          "We thought it would be best to have you stay in the van," Buck said with quiet firmness.

          "We who?"  J.D. demanded smartly.  "You and Ezra?"

          Vin winced visibly.

          Nathan's eyes got a little bigger. 

          Chris's eyes got a little smaller.

          Josiah regarded them all thoughtfully from behind steepled fingers. 

          "No," Buck said with glacial calm. 

          "I approved the decision," Chris cut in, his voice holding more ice than usual, especially when dealing with J.D.  "You have a concern, Agent Dunne?"

          J.D. licked his lips in a clear effort to pull back his anger.  "The equipment is fully automated," he said.  "I road tested it myself.  It performs perfectly."  His words seemed to gather speed.  "It's a waste of personnel to have someone stay in the van to watch equipment that doesn't need watching, when you need as many agents as you can get inside the building for the arrests."

          Chris's face could have been cast of stone for all the expression it held but Ezra knew from experience that the look in the man's eyes would be downright frosty.  He had a moment of fleeting relief that it wasn't focused on him. 

          Buck was shaking his head at the table top.

          Chris took a long, slow look around the room.  "Take five," he said suddenly.

          "J.D., stay," Chris ordered, while he pinned Ezra and Buck both down with his eyes alone.

          No one waited for a second invitation. Vin slid out of the chair and was out the door, still shaking his head.  Nathan followed with a backward glance.  Josiah made some kind of pensive noise before making his way out of the room. 

          Buck let out a long sigh.

          "In case you boys missed it," Chris growled out, "we're finishing a major operation tomorrow, which will hopefully end with the arrest and conviction of Omar Colón and several of his adjutants."  He swept the three agents together in a glance.  "Unless of course we can't get our plan to come together. " 

          He looked straight at Buck.

          The corners of Buck's mouth went tight, but he didn't answer. 

          Ezra rolled his eyes in frustration. 

          Chris seemingly read both of their faces and turned to J.D. 

          Dunne went red to the tips of his ears, but he held his ground.  "I'm just saying that I can be of more use with the rest of the team than sitting in the van."

          "Someone has to stay in the van," Buck said.  "We can't leave thousands of dollars of equipment, and your buddies' prototypes sitting parked in a van off the street."

          "So you stay in the van," J.D. shot back.

          Buck's eyes telegraphed an s.o.s. to Chris.  It went unheeded.  Chris was too busy watching J.D. sidelong.

          Buck was going to have to save himself. 

          "You have to stay in the van," Buck said, keeping his tone remarkably patient.  "You're responsible for the prototypes.  You did the shakedowns.  You know more about them than anyone.  And your name's on the paperwork."

          This sounded reasonable enough to Ezra. 

          Apparently not to J.D.  "That's a load of bull, and you know it," J.D. said. 

          Air hissed through Buck's teeth.  He grated out, "Can I have a minute to talk to my surveillance partner and our undercover agent?"

          Chris raised an eyebrow.  "Sure," he said frostily.  "You let me know if we're going to do this.  Or if I'm calling for a delay?"

          Ezra braced for the slam of the conference door.  It didn't come.  Instead Chris bellowed for Josiah.

          Buck waited only until he thought Chris was out of earshot before he demanded of J.D.  "You really want to do this now?" 

          "Do what, Buck?" J.D. retorted, with a venomous glance at Ezra.  "At least Ezra had the guts to tell me he didn't trust me.  Not stick me out of the way just in case I screwed up."

          Buck shot a glance at Ezra.  "That's what you said?" he asked in disbelief.  "That you didn't trust him?"

          Ezra's mouth fell open.  "I don't think my behavior is at issue here," he protested.

          "Oh no, not at all," J.D. said sarcastically.  "Because we wouldn't want you to go in without being absolutely certain what to expect."

          Now that sort of parroting was uncalled for.  After all, Ezra had done nothing except desire to protect his own safety.  What was so wrong about that?

          Honor impugned, he returned J.D.'s nasty look measure for measure. 

          But Buck was demanding an answer.  "After all this time, after everything J.D.'s done for the team, you're saying you don't trust him to back you up on this op?"

          Pinned between Buck's accusation and J.D.'s palpable anticipation of the answer, Ezra felt his blood pressure rise.  But he called on his considerable skills.  He wasn't the premiere undercover agent in the entire ATF, for nothing.  "I trust Mr. Dunne implicitly," he said with complete calm and a nod in J.D.'s direction.

          Unfortunately, this wasn't an undercover op.  These were Ezra's teammates, which had the unfortunate side effect that they knew him much too well.

          Buck got that impatient look he got when he knew he was "wading through knee-high horseshit".  He circled a hand in the air. 

          "Cut to the chase, Ezra," Buck growled. "'Cause Chris is two steps from callin' the brass off this.  And there goes Colón and all your months of undercover work."  He turned a pointed look at J.D.  "And there goes your prototype tests."

          And your new credibility with the brass, Ezra thought in J.D.'s direction.

          With that idea, the traitorous thought crept into Ezra's brain that maybe J.D.'s need for credibility right now outweighed the small likelihood that the plan would go so far south that it would all depend on whether J.D. shot to wound or to kill.

          Not to mention his own credibility and Chris's credibility and the Team's credibility in general—which was plenty fragile right now. 

          Ezra reminded himself that if it came to that, J.D. would be in as much danger as the rest of them.

          He clenched his teeth together and couldn't believe he was about to say this.

          "I did not impugn Mr. Dunne's integrity.  I simply expressed my concern over his philosophical quandary about shooting to kill," Ezra said, voice as smooth as a sheet of glass.  He turned from Buck back to J.D.  "If you can assure me that you're not going to try out your new idea on this operation, then I'm satisfied we can go ahead."

          J.D. stared at him.  "You want me to promise to kill someone?"

          "I want you to promise me you'll shoot first and ask questions later," Ezra said.  He leaned forward.  "I remind you these men aren't teenaged hoodlums.  They have a veritable arsenal at their disposal.  And they will not hesitate to kill any of us who stand between them and escape.  I just want to know you are mentally prepared for that."

          J.D.'s return look stabbed Ezra right through.  "I'm aware of the difference."

          Ezra turned to Buck.  "Then I am satisfied," he said.  His voice was infused with certainty, but below the table, his hands were clamped hard around the arms of his chair. 

          Buck did not look as if he believed Ezra for even a moment, but he turned slowly away from Ezra to look at J.D.

          "Someone still has to stay in the van," he said.  "And you're still the most reasonable choice."

          J.D. scowled back at him.

          Ezra looked from one to the other.  He cleared his throat.  "I'll go tell Mr. Larabee that we've come to a consensus."  He peeled himself out of the chair and departed.

          Buck shook his head at J.D. and lowered his voice in volume but not in intensity.  "Keeping you in the van never had anything to do with this stupid idea of yours.  And if you had kept your trap shut, no one else would have known."

          "Who's left to find out?" J.D. hissed back.  "Are there some people in the building who still don't know?"

          Buck didn’t mention that it wasn't him who went and blathered it all over the bullpen.  Buck supposed he could set the record straight about that later.  Right now there were bigger fish to fry.

          "Yeah," Buck snarled back.  "Your boss, for one."

          Realization dawned, but Buck didn't wait for it to sink in. 

          "But now I'm going to have to tell him."  He cast a glance back toward the door just to make sure they were still alone.  "If he cancels this op, there's going to be hell to pay," Buck warned.  "And when the shit rolls downhill, you and me are going to be standing at the bottom without umbrellas."

          If J.D. had anything to reply, he didn't get the chance.  Buck could hear his teammates filing in behind him.

          Chris looked none too pleased.  There was an odd expression on Josiah's face.  Ezra was pissed, though he was trying to hide it.  That little pitying head shake of Vin's was getting on Buck's nerves.  Even Nathan looked irritated.

          Chris didn't even sit down.  He gave Buck a baleful glare and waited.

          Buck looked at Ezra, which made Ezra want to grab a hold of the mans' collar and bang his head against the table.  But he didn't.  He formulated ways to say that they had ironed out the problem in a way that Chris might believe and vowed that if he suffered an injury of any kind because of this, he would take it out seven-fold on the whole team. 

          "I believe we are set to continue as planned," Ezra said finally.

          Only Chris's eyes moved, to light on J.D. 

          J.D. didn't actually look at Chris, but he said, "All set."

          Chris pulled out his chair and sat down again. 

          "So," he said with more than a little irony.  "Surveillance is all set."  He gave Nathan a good hard glower and asked, "You have any little problems you want to air, Agent Jackson?"

          Nathan stiffened.  He stared at Chris for just a heartbeat.  His answer was thoughtful and slow, but he couldn't keep his lips from twitching upward.  "When the shooting starts, can I stay in the van with J.D.?"

          Vin and Buck both gave a low chuckle.

          Nathan smiled broadly as Vin drawled out, "Maybe we can all hide in the van and let Colón and his boys arrest each other."  

          "Amen to that," Josiah uttered.

          J.D. let loose a reluctant laugh of his own. 

          Chris was looking at Ezra.

          Ezra took a deep breath.  And nodded his head.  Yes.  The answer was yes.  He was ready.  _Let's do this._

          Chris nodded back. 

          He saved his smile, albeit a small one, and his look of approval for Nathan.

          _The only one with any sense._ Ezra heard Chris's voice in his head.  The man had said it often enough. 

          The tension broken and dissipated, the rest of the meeting went smoothly.

          It was a good cover id and a good plan, Ezra decided again on reevaluation.  A good plan freed him up to do his job, to make decisions and act on them, knowing how his team would react.  Even J.D., he assured himself. 

          Chris had to go upstairs again for the usual sign-offs, final instructions, and dire warnings.

          Ezra worked on making final arrangements.  He would be away from home for next week or so.  And he would be largely avoiding the office.  He had preparations to make before metamorphosing into Ephraim St. Leger again this evening.

          It took a little while, but he finally powered down his computer and loaded up his briefcase.  He had arrangements to make at home, too, before coming back for wiring up and final instructions. 

          Buck banged his chair against Ezra's. 

          Ezra glared at him.  "Did you need something?"

          "You good?"  Buck asked.

          "If by 'good', you mean am I ready, then yes, I am perfectly prepared and ready to accomplish my part of the assignment," he said testily.  "And you?  Are you good?"

          "Hell, Ez," Buck leered back, his voice heavily laced with innuendo.  "I'm always good."

          Ezra looked perfectly disgusted.  J.D. groaned.

          "Count on Buck to bring down the level," Nathan muttered. 

          "What?" Buck asked innocently.            

          Despite the buffoonery, Ezra knew what Buck was asking him.  The way Buck acted a lot of the time, it was no wonder that people occasionally questioned Chris's choice in making Buck his second in command.  But there was no denying the man's skills, when he chose to apply them wisely.

          Likewise, Ezra trusted Buck had heard what Ezra was telling him.  Ezra was as ready as he was ever going to be.  And he was trusting all of them once again to back him up while he went out into the jungle ahead of them. 

          "Good luck, Ez," Vin said easily.  "See ya in a few."

          "Don't take any unnecessary chances," Nathan admonished.

          "Don't do or say anything you don't want recorded," J.D. advised, relenting just enough to wish his teammate well. 

          "You know where we are if you need us," Josiah reminded him firmly. 

          "See you tonight," Buck said.  "Enjoy your last hours of freedom."

          "Make your check ins," Chris said sternly from the doorway. 

          "I am a professional," was Ezra's only response, knowing they heard him perfectly.

 

 

          Ezra inserted perfectly into the operation.  There was a tense moment where J.D., a block away and manning a portable monitor, held his breath as a suspicious man started a pat down.  J.D. and Buck had hidden the tiny recording equipment themselves and had shown Ezra all the tricks they knew to avoid interference and detection by both physical and electronic means. 

          Buck had declared the designer to be the DaVinci of electronic surveillance.  When J.D. had first brought the device to Chris's attention, Chris had told him point blank that he didn't want to hear the details about how J.D. managed to get access to a device that was supposed to be classified.  Just that it was totally legitimate. 

          J.D. didn't tell him the genius behind it was just a buddy at MIT.  It was so much better to let Chris think he had been crawling around in dark corridors and meeting with shadowy figures that trod the edges of state secrets and espionage stuff like that.  J.D. liked the image.  Besides, it wasn't every day that he got the chance to impress Chris Larabee.

          Today was not that day either. 

          But it was certainly no small feat to impress Buck Wilmington. 

          Oddly, it was Ezra that J.D. had really wanted to impress. 

          A man on the camera, presumably Jarvis Onho waved the other man off, displaying a number of heavy gold rings as the waving hand came into camera range from just to Ezra's right.

          Ezra's voice came over the pickups, perfectly calm, genial, and mildly offended.  Not much different from every day.  J.D. admired the man's ability to play his role so perfectly. 

          The man on Ezra's right, his gray suit just inside the camera's line of vision, was plenty offended on Ezra's, make that Ephraim St. Leger's behalf.  Omar Colón didn't take kindly to having his judgment second guessed.  Ephraim waved him down smoothly, declaring that he appreciated a cautious businessman. 

          And just like that, he was in. 

          J.D. leaned back in relief.

          He radioed Josiah, who lay moaning and mumbling to himself in a stained sleeping bag another two blocks away, that they were good, and there was nothing left for them to do for a while.  Hours actually, maybe even days.

          Still, he didn't like turning off the receiver and cutting Ezra loose.  It was part of the plan, of course.  Ezra would do his own recording from here on out, the better to avoid detection of their signal of course.  And if he got caught, he had a half dozen reasons for his actions figured out, all of which would be easier to believe if he wasn't transmitting his information anywhere.

          J.D. sighed and rubbed a hand over his eyes.  His elbow brushed his shoulder holster as he pulled a letter reluctantly from his coat.  He stared at the envelope without opening it.  It had been waiting for him when he got back to the townhouse. Between his hellish day at work, and his quick run before returning to wire Ezra up, he had read it three times.  Its meaning was burned clearly into his memory.  He had to tell his story yet again.  This time to be recorded as a deposition.

          Vin's voice through his earpiece broke into his thoughts.

          "What're ya waitin' for, Kid?" he demanded.  "Day's finally over."

          In his mind's eye, J.D. could see Vin shimmying down his electrical pole and removing his borrowed gloves and hard hat. 

          "We got us a date with a beer," Vin said.

          "Yeah," J.D. agreed, shaking his head and trying to smile. 

          "You got a date with Chris first," Nathan's voice reminded them.

          "Okay," Vin said easily.  "Chris first.  Then beer."

          "You buying?" Josiah asked, while J.D. envisioned him arriving at the Saloon in his torn and stained up clothes and wild hair. 

          "Hell no!" Vin snorted.  "Chris is."

          "Does he know that?" Nathan asked skeptically.

          "Not yet," Vin said confidently and J.D. could hear the grin in his voice.

          It was contagious.  Even he had to grin at that. He wondered why Nathan even bothered to ask.  Chris and Buck were thick as thieves, but he was pretty sure Vin could talk Chris into anything.

          J.D. folded the envelope back into his pocket and started cleaning up his equipment, carefully removing all traces that he had ever been in the tiny rented room.

          "Be right there," he said.  "Don’t start the party without me."

          Chris seemed satisfied with the way it had gone.  It was a good beginning.  And J.D. couldn't help but be grateful at the way his teammates were careful to report how well J.D.'s new equipment had worked.  Chris gave J.D. a silent nod in recognition and declared the work day over. 

          "What now?" Josiah asked.

          Vin and Chris looked at each other.  Vin's grin coaxed one out of Chris, too.  "Saloon," they said in unison.

          "Vin says you're buying," Nathan said innocently.

          "That so?" Chris asked, raising his eyebrow at Vin.

          But he didn't say otherwise and J.D. amended his earlier thoughts.  Apparently Vin didn't actually have to _talk_ to talk Chris into anything.

          "Well what are we waiting for?" Buck said, helping J.D. stow the last of the cables.  "Let's get this crate back to the barn and head on out."

          J.D.'s fingers brushed against his pocket as he took his seat.  Like his lawyer said, J.D. just needed to tell what had happened.  The truth was still the truth.

          J.D. resolved not to think about it anymore.  At least not tonight. 

          Chris stayed long enough for one congratulatory beer.  Then he let himself out of the booth with what Buck considered a lame-ass excuse for a smile and an excuse that was just plain old lame.

          Buck lowered his head and sighed.

          Looked like his day wasn't quite over yet.

          But it was going to wait until he finished his beer and was good and ready.

          He put on his own happy face and sat and smiled through another good hour.

 

 

          When he was finally good and ready or maybe just good and foolish, Buck tracked Chris down.  He was in the basement of the federal building, in the gym, beating the tar out of an innocent heavy bag.

          Buck's boots echoed in the after-hours emptiness of the room.  Chris was too busy huffing and puffing and thwacking both fists and feet into the body of the bag to hear him, but Buck knew Chris would notice him eventually.

          At length, his patience was rewarded when Chris heaved his shoulder into the swinging bag, stopping it and giving Buck the evil eye.

          His shoulder left a shiny smear on the black vinyl surface.  His hair was plastered to his forehead the way his shirt was plastered to his body. 

          He'd done a lot of damage in the last hour then. 

          Buck thought about J.D. 

          "J.D.'s got a deposition tomorrow morning," Buck said.

          The evil eye got even more evil.  "I gave him the morning off," Chris grunted, starting in on the bag again with a couple of vicious combinations.

          Buck nodded.

          Chris's tone was equally vicious when he asked,  "You got anything else you maybe forgot to tell me in the last couple of days?" 

          Buck stuck his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels.  He knew better than to answer that one.  He watched Chris slam the bag a few more times.  Omar Colón should be glad they were trained to shoot.  Chris looked like he was itching to take someone apart with his bare hands.  Buck suspected he might be first on the list of candidates.

          "Next time you find out there's a problem in the team, you let me know," Chris growled out.  His glare was near enough lethal.

          Buck looked away.

          "I know," he admitted.  "I should have told you last night when I found out.  Before it got this far."

          A knee and a foot slammed the bag in rapid succession.

          Buck licked his lips.  "I was working on the problem," he said.

          The bag swung wildly.  Buck sighed and stepped up behind it and braced against it.  "You want to skip the bag and just hit me?"

          "Not the worst idea you've had today," Chris grunted out, punctuating each word with a strike to the bag.  Palm, elbow, throat chop, knee. 

          Buck felt the vibration of two more jabs vibrate through the bag. 

          "Working on the problem," Chris sneered.

          Buck braced a little harder. 

          "In a tactical meeting is the last place I should find out that one of my agents doesn’t trust another one because he's having delusions about whether or not he should shoot to kill."  Chris shoved the bag hard enough to knock Buck back a step.

          Buck grimaced.  Josiah must have told him.

          "I didn't want to bring more trouble down on his head," Buck said, sounding both plaintive and stupid to his own ears.

          "Fuck," Chris snarled, giving the bag another hard right.  "What was your plan if J.D. didn't get his head screwed on before Ezra went under?  What's your plan if J.D. doesn't have his head screwed on when the shooting starts?"

          Buck looked hard at Chris. 

          "You think he won't?" Buck accused.

          Chris gave Buck a look that burned all the way through.  "You didn't give me a chance to do much thinking about it either way," Chris said.

          And Buck could see it in Chris's eyes: the question of whether he should have scrapped the mission after all. 

          After all that prep, not to mention time and money, wouldn't Ezra and J.D., and everyone else on the team, and the brass too, have just loved to hear Chris make that announcement. 

          "Ezra's in," Buck said.  "It's fine.  It'll be fine," he repeated. 

"It better be," Chris said through his teeth. He turned his back on Buck and walked away.

          Buck's arms flapped out from his sides, but he swallowed his reply.  There was no point talking to himself in an empty room anyway.

          Instead, he pounded his frustration into the bag. 

 

 

          In the hours of early morning, a thought woke J.D. like a cold shower spray suddenly hitting him in the face.  At some point, he was going to have to meet Tyson Morton's mother.  And the other mothers.  And he would have to look them in the eyes.

          He threw back the quilt and turned on the light before he even looked at the clock, dismayed to read the time and know there were still hours to go before he could even begin the day.  He sighed and considered lying in bed and letting his troubles toss him around like a rowboat in a storm or bagging sleep in favor of a bike ride.  Or maybe some coffee.

          It was raining.  The coffee won out.

          At 6:30, Buck found J.D. in the living room, in the old armchair the kid had dragged across the room.  His feet were propped up on the windowsill, and he seemed to be staring out the window.

          For a moment Buck thought maybe J.D. had fallen asleep that way, but two steps closer revealed that J.D. was fully dressed and had a half a cup of coffee between his hands.

          "You're up early," Buck said.  "Thought you'd sleep in."

          The deposition was at nine.  He had nowhere to be until then.

          "Couldn't sleep," J.D. said.

          "Oh," Buck replied.  He wandered into the kitchen to see if the coffee was still warm.  It wasn't.  The cup in J.D.'s hands was probably cold, too.

          He poured two cups and put them both in the microwave.

          "You could have come and got me," Buck said.

          J.D. shrugged.  "Not a whole lot you can do," he answered.

          Buck disagreed.  In his opinion, sitting up all night with a buddy who needed him actually did constitute a whole lot.  What's more, he'd been told as much.  Besides, he could be very distracting.  He'd been told that, too.

          He didn't tell J.D. any of that, largely because he couldn't figure out how pointing out that J.D. was wrong was going to be particularly helpful at this moment.

          He took J.D. the warmed coffee instead because that ought to count for something, too.

          A short time later, on his way out the front door, Buck wished J.D. good luck and told him he'd wait lunch on him. 

          They would all be waiting for him.  Of that, Buck was certain.

 

 

          J.D.'s attorney had argued relentlessly that his client had already given a detailed description of the events on the day in question.  He argued that the reports were a matter of public record under implied oath, and that telling it again outside of court was simply a waste of time and money.  He didn't think they'd go for it.  After all, they couldn’t question a written report.  He knew that as well as they did, and he'd informed his client that they wanted his testimony, so they could look for ways to trip him up on the stand.

          The young agent's face was grim as he had nodded, but when Frank Lawford asked him if he was ready to go into the room, he displayed no hesitation.

          He paused only once, in the doorway, to look around at the opposing counsel and the court reporter.  An expression flashed across Dunne's face that Frank read curiously as relief.

          He didn't ask, though.  He simply pulled out a chair for J.D. to sit in at the long table and scooted his own chair close by.  In his experience, proximity gave his clients some comfort when the opposition started spouting legalese.

          "You did good," Lawford said two hours later, purchasing two sodas and two candy bars from a snack machine tucked away in an obscure alcove on the second floor.

          Dunne looked doubtful.

          "Straightforward, detailed, unsentimental," Frank confirmed.

          Dunne flinched.

          Frank frowned.  "Unsentimental," he repeated.  "Not unfeeling."

          He clapped a hand across J.D.'s shoulders and handed him a bottle of Mountain Dew and a Snickers.

          "Come on," he said, tilting his head toward the nearby stairwell.  "Now we'll go up to my office and talk about what to expect next."

          J.D. followed him into the stairwell without a word.

 

 

          Chris didn't have to look up to know it was Buck knocking on his office doorframe.  He didn't have to answer either.  It was Buck's typical m.o. to enter whether he got invited or not.  Today was no different. 

          Usually he slouched into one of Chris's chairs, though, and tried to put his feet up on Chris's desk.

          Not today.  Today he came and stood in front of the desk. 

          That caught Chris's attention—that and the tension he saw in Buck's stance.

          His first instinct was alarm, a jolt of adrenaline following the thought that they had heard from Ezra and there was trouble.  But if that were the case, Buck would have started shouting from the doorway rather than standing there and waiting.

          "You hear from J.D.?" Buck asked. 

          Chris relaxed visibly and chided himself for spooking so easily.  After all, a routine plainclothes DPD patrol in Ezra's new neighborhood had clocked him leaving his short-term rental unit at seven this morning.  Chris could only imagine how much that galled Ezra.  An agent working the counter at the appointed Starbuck's up the street reported that his customer was definitely not a morning person, and was a stingy tipper, to boot.

          Chris turned his attention back to Buck.

          "No," Chris answered finally.  Sensing Buck's continued unease, he added, "I'm probably not the first person he'd call, though."

          Predictably, Buck scowled at him.  "I'd be the first person he'd call," Buck pointed out.  "And he hasn't called."

          Now Buck did sit down, planting himself in one of Chris's visitor chairs as if he intended to stay for the duration, or at least until he got what he wanted.

          Chris suppressed a sigh.  He was getting mighty tired of Mother Wilmington.  Why Buck couldn't see it wasn't working was beyond him.  Then again, he reflected, when Buck got his teeth into an idea, falling on his face didn't necessarily persuade the man that he was wrong. 

          "It takes as long as it takes, Buck," Chris said pointedly.

          Buck scowled back at him, and Chris wondered just what Buck wanted him to do, since he didn't have the power to alter time or make J.D. magically appear out of thin air.

          Buck didn't say anything.  He did attempt to put his feet up on Chris's desk, however.

          Chris's glare sent the offending appendages sliding a long way across the carpet, where they remained, as did their owner. 

          Chris swiveled his office chair away from Buck and back to his computer, hoping Buck could read his example and remember they had jobs to do.

          Not surprisingly, the tactic failed. 

          "I don’t think he got much sleep last night," Buck said at length.

          Chris's fingers stopped typing and hung suspended above the keyboard.  Against his better judgment he turned back toward Buck.

          It was on the tip of his tongue to shoot back a tart "Join the club," but he didn't, largely because Buck looked so forlorn about it.

          "I take it you didn’t get much sleep last night then either," Chris deduced.

          Buck shook his head.  But not exactly in agreement with Chris's words.  The waves of thick brown hair at the top of his head shook with the effort, telling Chris that Buck was either running low on styling gel or in need of a haircut.

          "I found him sitting in front of the picture window when I came downstairs," Buck said, looking at the opposite wall.

          "Ah," Chris said, hoping to convey that he got the picture.

          But Buck kept talking.  "I figured he would be sleeping in today because of the deposition.  You know?"

          Again Chris grunted out a monosyllable to show his understanding. 

          Then he winced because that was clearly not going to be enough to do the job.  Plus he owed Buck more than that.

          "There's not a whole lot you can do here, Buck," he said, trying less for forthright and more for compassionate.

          Buck's returning scowl was anything but grateful.  "That's what J.D. said," he muttered. 

          Chris suppressed the urge to point out that maybe J.D. was right and Buck could just let it go for an hour or two.  Instead he said, "He'll call when he's ready."

          Chris glanced at the time.

          "I told him we'd wait lunch," Buck said, fending off any ideas Chris might have about how to get him out of his office.

          "Okay," Chris said simply.  "Then we wait lunch."

          "Right," Buck said, more to himself than Chris.

          Chris watched the man slouch down a little further, making himself more comfortable in the chair and sliding his feet a little further under Chris's desk.  Given a few more minutes and other circumstances, he was pretty sure Buck would have closed his eyes and tried for a nap.  It wasn't like he'd never done it before.

          Chris fought hard not to roll his eyes.  Instead he turned back to his computer and went back to his work. 

          Apparently Buck was going to sit right there and wait for J.D. to come back, like some big dog in need of a haircut waiting for his owner to come home.  And Chris knew exactly what Buck expected of him now, too.  His job was to sit here in the same room in a show of solidarity and moral support.  He could do that just fine, but if Buck expected Chris to distract him, too, then Buck had better think again.

 

 

          Having given Agent Dunne a fairly good idea of how he planned to proceed and what kind of troubles to expect from the opposing team, Frank Lawton saw the young agent out the lobby doors and on his way back to his office.  Dunne seemed like a nice fellow, and a very good agent.  It wasn't going to be easy for Gillingham's team to dig up much in the man's past that could be turned against him.  Dunne was unusually forthright about his career past.  Clearly it was not in him to harbor secrets about his own conduct. 

          Of course, honesty like that could be a double-edged sword.  It spoke well of Dunne's character that he had little to hide.  On the other hand, it was the most likely weapon Gillingham could use against him.  The fact that he clearly regretted killing those boys and had publicly expressed his wish that it might have turned out differently both did him credit and opened the doors for attack.  Of course, Dunne's wish had not been stated quite so baldly, but it didn't take much interpretation.  And it was still written plainly in the agent's eyes. 

          Lawford meant to play his client's regret as an indication of Agent Dunne's compassion for the community he served and his respect for the value of humanity.  He would use it to show J.D. Dunne: honest federal agent, compassionate crime fighter, a man who knows what it is like to lose people he loves.  By which, Lawford hoped to counteract Gillingham's "Agent Dunne": trigger-happy, mistake prone killer, instrument of an unjust government with a callous disregard for the people he was supposed to protect and serve.

          Lawford figured he had the easier burden of proof.  But even he couldn't quite predict the receptivity of the ears J.D.'s testimony would fall on come their day in court.  Clearly, the bitter grief of three young mothers was likely to catch the sympathy of all onlookers, sworn in or not.  The mother of Tyson Morton, the boy least likely to have been involved in committing the crime, could potentially do J.D. the most damage in the sympathy department.

          Frank sighed and turned his attention to one of the least pleasant tasks he had to perform.  Gillingham had deposed J.D. to find weaknesses he could use to his advantage.  Now Frank was going to do the same to Kierra Lebec, Shadray Taylor-Deems, and then Shana Morton.  And he intended to be thorough.  It was not, he reflected as he began to prepare his questions and his strategies, going to be the kind of week where he would get to go home feeling like one of the good guys. 

 

 

          J.D. didn't feel like one of the good guys either.  He knew it was necessary.  He knew that Frank needed to find the same kind of ammunition against the mothers of those three dead boys that the slimy attorney for the plaintiff wanted to find against him.  But he couldn’t feel good about it.  No matter what he told himself.

          Hands in his pockets, he walked several blocks in a wide circle around the federal building.  For a moment he resolved to tell Chris he was taking the rest of the day off.  He even pulled his phone out to make the call.  But he couldn't.  Buck and the rest of the team were up there.  And they were holding lunch, which was ridiculous because it was nearly two o'clock.  Besides, he supposed that going up there was better than wandering around alone down here.  And work would be a welcome distraction.

          "I don't want to talk about it," was J.D.'s announcement on crossing the bullpen threshold.

          Buck had appeared in the doorway of Chris's office but shut his mouth at the pronouncement.

          Vin's shrug indicated that was just fine with him.

          Nathan and Josiah simply got their coats and logged off their computers.

          Chris managed to squeeze past Buck and out his own doorway.  He looked J.D. over once, but all he said was, "Where are we eating?"

          "You pick," Vin said to J.D.

          "Pick someplace that serves salads," Nathan said, but his hand landed solidly on J.D.'s shoulder as he went out to snag an elevator for them.

          "Pick someplace good," Vin countered and followed after Nathan.

          Chris and Josiah went out to join them, while J.D. thought about it.

          The elevator dinged and Nathan hollered for them.

          "You can decide on the way down," Buck said curtly and pushed J.D. ahead of him out into the hall.

          They squeezed together into the elevator alongside the few unlucky people who were already on, Team Seven laughing and talking around them, complaining good-naturedly about who was taking up too much space and should move the hell over. 

          In the midst of the chaos, J.D. realized that this was better than moping around by himself.  Nothing had changed, but maybe Buck had been right this morning, he thought.  Maybe helping someone wasn't always about _doing_ something to fix the problem.  Maybe sometimes it was about just _being_ there.

          "Hey," J.D. said, elbowing Buck for crowding into his space.

          "What?" Buck asked, still grinning at Vin over something the sharpshooter had said.

          It was on the tip of J.D.'s tongue to say "You know, you're smarter than you look."  But a smart remark didn't do justice to what he wanted to say.  And that he didn't want to say what he really felt while standing in front of the team and in a crowded elevator.

          "Move over will ya?" he griped instead.

          "Sure thing," Buck said happily, and he edged right into Vin's space, prompting the sniper to protest in his own inimitable way.  Buck stepped on Josiah's foot while dodging the wet willie Vin tried to give him, prompting Josiah to threaten both of them loudly.

          J.D. actually laughed out loud when Nathan turned to the person beside him and tried in vain to pretend that he didn’t actually know these people who got on the elevator with him. 

          They let the other people off the elevator first.  It was the least they could do.  Chris held the door open while the four men and two women exited.  He watched them pass and thought about what they would say if he told them the bunch of fools they couldn’t get away from fast enough comprised the crème de la crème of the ATF, the highest-rated, crack squad in the Western region. 

          Picturing the look on their faces drew an evil smile out of him wide enough to draw curious stares from his team.

          He didn't tell them what he had been thinking, of course.  They didn't need bigger heads than they already had.

 

 

          Ty's burial had not been an easy decision.  Shana's first instincts were prideful and jealous.  She would do this for her child, as she had done for him since he was a mere presence inside her womb.  She did not lean on Kierra the way Kierra had leaned on her.  She would not lean on friends, and she would not take from strangers, no matter how noble and lily-white they perceived their intentions to be.  Ty was her child.  For fifteen years, she and she alone had provided for him.  A decent home to live in, decent food on the table, and decent clothes on his back, and a hundred other large and small provisions that cost no money and yet were essential to a life. 

          But hitting her unprepared, rising up out of the yawning maw that her dreams of the future had become, out of the uncertain and strange landscape that she suddenly found herself in, the sheer immensity of providing for him now, in death, had sucked the breath right out of her. 

          It had taken her days, days of fending off calls from the hospital morgue, from self-righteous Cyril DuPree, from co-workers, and well-meaning others to swallow her pride.  It was her mother who knocked her upside her stubborn head.  And told her to stop being obstinate.  Shana could not afford the costs of a decent funeral.

          She tried to tell herself that it didn't matter where they put his body.  It was just a body.  His spirit was already free.  That was what mattered, but try as she might, she couldn't convince herself that was true. 

          She had hardly given thought to where she might be buried when she died, let alone where Ty would be.  With a chill that filled her up like cold water in an empty vessel, she realized that no matter where she chose to bury her child, she could not afford to buy a plot where she could rest beside him.  There were loans, of course, but her mother had looked at her sideways and asked her point blank how much more she was going to let this terrible accident take from her.

          Her reply was harsh, but Shana's mother knew her too well.  The old woman determined to make her slow and painful way out to sit in the sun so that Shana could hang her head and cry out her pride. 

          In the end, Shana accepted, exactly as Kierra had, a sun-kissed plot with a proper casket, a headstone to come, and a preacher to speak words over him.  No, she could not ever hope to rest beside him.  But he was there beside Ky.  Just like he would have wanted.  Inseperable in life.  Now together for always. 

          That thought was not lost on Kierra either. 

          The two women worked side by side, working the mounded soil over the earth, and breaking out flimsy green plastic pots containing still-fragile flowers.  This was one of the few cemeteries that allowed plantings, and Shana had surprised Kierra with a phone call from her workplace at the loading dock of the main distribution center of a chain of home-improvement and garden centers.  Combining the sale price with Shana's employee discount, they contrived to make a nice deal on flowers that Ky and Ty would have grudgingly accepted and secretly liked.  Both women kept their focus and their concentration on the earth before them, as they discussed together, in quiet, halting tones, hard to push past tight throats and yet somehow finding the surprise of a smile in thinking about what the boys would have said to put on their headstones.  What they would have said about each other.  The silly insults they would have suggested.

          Shana sat back on her heels and looked down at her plantings.  The flowers looked shabby and ragged, as if simply being planted had been an ordeal for them.  But they would recover and stretch their leaves and bloom. 

          On her right, Kierra gave a long sigh and dusted off her hands.  She looked over at Shana from the corner of her eye and hesitated too long.

          Shana felt that all too familiar tight apprehension settle into her gut as she waited for Kierra to speak.

          Her voice was hesitant at first, but she carried on over whatever second thoughts she had like driving over a speed bump.  Still, her voice had an odd fakeness in its conversational tone. 

          "My lawyer says your lawyer is the best in the business," Kierra said.

          Shana looked back at her long-time friend and felt her eyes narrow.  "I wouldn't really know," she said, trying to keep the bite out of her tone at the thought of him.

          Kierra shrugged self-consciously.  "She says that his team is out looking for ways to make that bastard cop look real bad."

          Shana turned her head fully toward Kierra now.

          Kierra went on, "She said that he'll find something to use against him.  Something that can help our cases."

          It struck Shana suddenly as odd, the way Kierra said "our cases" and for a moment, she lost the thread of Kierra's words, trying to put her finger on what had seemed so out of place. 

          Kierra's voice hardened bitterly, "She said that we can also use whatever he finds to show that our boys didn't have to lose their lives like that.  But you have to go first, so we can have the information."  The deep brown eyes flecked with gold were lit with the rays of the late afternoon sun and something else, something cold and unpleasant.  "Or you have to convince your lawyer to share with us so we can use it, too."

          Shana didn't answer.  The thoughts were too jumbled together in her head, but she felt herself lean away to look at Kierra more intently. 

          Kierra interpreted her non-answer as a need for more convincing.  She reached out for Shana's hand.

          "That man took our babies' lives," she said, her voice breaking again.  She was trying not to cry.  "Don't we deserve a little justice?"

          The realization jolted her, pulling her hand out of Kierra's.

          Kierra looked at her, startled, and Shana stilled.

          "I'm sorry," Shana said, and realized at that moment that Kierra probably believed that.  There was no doubt in Shana's mind that Radim had talked Ky into both the gun and the trip to the store.  And he had probably told Ky a pack of lies.  But Ky had pulled a gun and fired it.  There was no mistaking that. 

          Even so, she could not remind Kierra of that.  In her eyes, Radim was more guilty.  And that made Ky more innocent.  Maybe Shana even believed that, too, knowing Ky.  But still…

          Shana squashed the next thought that rose in her mind as brutally and determinedly as Kierra must have squashed her own acceptance of the truth.  It was a betrayal to wonder just how much Ty had known about what Radim was turning Ky into.  Was it possible that her sweet son had known what his friend was up to?  Did he try to talk Ky out of it?

          She shook her head and abruptly rocked backward, standing up out of the dirt and brushing off her knees.  She had refused to consider those questions in the dark of night in her own bed.  She would not break faith and consider them now, standing over her son's grave.

          Kierra was still kneeling on the grass, looking up at her, still waiting for an answer.

          "I don't know what he'll find," Shana answered finally.  "I can ask him what his plans are."

          She wondered how to do that.  He didn't seem like the kind of person who listened overmuch or was very interested in what other people thought.  She had threatened to cut ties with him.  And now she would go back with demands from her friends' other lawyer?  She didn't see how that was even possible. 

          She remembered her last visit to Gerald Gillingham's office as she looked down at Kierra.  "You know that agent's lawyer is going to make Ty and Ky and Radim look like thugs," she said frankly.  It didn’t help that the description more or less fit for Radim.

          Kierra's face hardened.  "He can say what he wants, but it won't change the truth.  Ky and Ty were good boys.  He killed them.  And he deserves to pay."

          The truth…  Shana thought and tried not to be so aware of the irony.  Sure as hell Ky and Ty didn't deserve to pay the price they did.  She could not argue with that.  The grief alone screamed out that it wasn't fair. 

          But somewhere in a corner of her mind, she felt a niggling doubt that maybe all the people buzzing around with their opinions and points of view and the voices talking, talking, talking in Kierra's ear, the same people and the same voices Shana kept slamming doors and telephones down on over and over again had finally convinced Kierra that the robbery paled in comparison to the injustice done their children.

          And the mother in her could not disagree. 

          Her child, at least, was innocent.

          She could not let him look like a thug.  Even if Kierra needed all the dirt Gillingham could come up with to come out in a courtroom for everyone to hear, so her lawyer could use it.  And even if they dragged Agent John Dunne through the mud and made him look like the dumbest lowlife scumbag who ever walked, the man's lawyer would get a chance to fire back.  And Shana could not let that happen.  Not even for Kierra.

          "I can ask," was all she mumbled in reply. 

          She squinted at the sun.  "I have to go," she said, at last and turned toward the car.

          Kierra got up stiffly and brushed at her pantlegs.  She followed Shana to the car. 

          It was a long drive back to the city, filled with a silence just that much more painful than usual and a distance between them that neither woman was used to.

 

 

          If Gerald Gillingham had been any kind of good sport, he would have given Frank Lawford credit for being thorough, but Gillingham wasn't a good sport.  There was no room for sportsmanship in the game of law.  He didn't win cases by being a good sport about them.  His own investigators were going to get an earful and a kick in the ass.  However, that would have to wait because right now his hands were full with Shana Morton.

          She had actually done better than he had anticipated, presenting herself as an intelligent and hardworking single mother who tried to do her best to support herself and her teenage son.  That would always play well with juries and justices alike.

          Gillingham didn't mind the tears.  The tears were expected, a necessary evil, actually.  Tears did a wronged witness credit.  Lack of tears looks suspicious to judges and juries.  The fact that Shana seemed so controlled and stoic through her narrative lent just that much more import to her grief.  The dignified way she dabbed at her eyes was a master stroke.  He wished he'd thought of it.  He would find a way to encourage her to do it again while she was in front of a jury. 

          No, the problem was that while Shana had known how much time her son was spending with his best friend Kyle Lebec, enduring the teenage attitude to find out where he was going and when he'd be back, it became rapidly apparent that she had not known how much time Kyle was spending with his cousin Radim and the petty criminals he hung out with. 

          Lawford was cunning, too, starting off trying to look like a decent guy, lulling her into lowering her defenses, as he asked the standard questions about Tyson's school and his friends.  Ty was a decent student and seemed to stay out of trouble, but he didn't have a lot of friends.  It all bolstered up the appearance that Ty was a good kid who was unjustly cut down in the flower of youth.

          The fact that it played so well into his own hand was what alerted Gillingham that Lawford was laying out a trap.  Trouble was, Gillingham had to wait for him to lay it out before he could start to figure out how to avoid it. 

          He and Shana watched as Lawford laid out a row of photographs of various boys and young men, each one arriving with a name.  Shana shook her head bewilderedly as she repeatedly denied ever hearing the names before.  A dozen photos in all.  No, Ty had never mentioned any of them. 

          When Lawford read out the list of crimes and misdemeanors attached to these faces and names—drug possession, possession with intent to sell, weapons charges, assault, menacing, vandalism, destruction of public property, trespassing, breaking and entering, larceny, grand theft auto, and a host of petty crimes—and asked her if she was sure Ty had not known these individuals, Shana had grown more and more indignant and more and more furious. 

          A buzzer went off in Gillingham's head.  He asked for time to confer with his client before she demanded to know just what Lawford was getting at and sprung the trap for him.  He was just a moment too late. 

          Her string of perfectly appropriate denials and indignation went all to hell when she demanded to know why Lawford was showing her these pictures. 

          "These are some of Radim Taylor's known associates," Lawford replied.  Then he separated out a set of three photos, angry teenage faces peering up from the table.  He pushed the three toward her.  "These were friends of Kyle Lebec."

          Shana's mouth dropped open.  She shook her head firmly and argued against the very idea of it.  She had seen Kyle's classmates at the funeral.  They were good boys.  They were there with their parents. 

          Lawford looked down at the table for a moment.  "Kyle's teachers say he had changed a lot in the past year."

          Finally, Gillingham got in the chance to object, to strike information from the court records.  Lawford was giving testimony.  But the damage was done.

          Shana's shock was complete.  She turned her angry eyes away from Lawford, who should have been the recipient of her full fury, slandering Tyson's reputation the way he was.  Her furious eyes bored into Gillingham, the silent accusation clear.  A demand to know why he had kept this information from her.

          Slander by association, he would call it.  He had planned to counteract it in court, to call it a shameful tactic.  He could hardly speak up and tell her that, not right now in the middle of the deposition.  He reached for her hand.

          She moved it away from him like he was on fire.

          Then it got worse. 

          She pushed the three pictures of the three boys back across the table toward Lawford. 

          Gillingham leaped up to pause the proceedings just as she asked Lawford haltingly, "Did my son know these boys?"

          Gillingham started talking.

          Shana's voice gained strength.  "Did my son hang out with people like these?"

          Lawford looked back at her a long time and Gillingham wished some accident of fate, a piece of the ceiling falling in, a small aircraft perhaps, something or anything would arrive to shut the man up. 

          "He knew them," the self-righteous bastard answered her quietly.

          Gillingham was already assessing the damage.  Knew them did not mean he was friends with them, or associated with them, let alone participated in any of their unsavory activities.

          He whispered as much, in simpler words, into Shana's ear.

          She glared at both men and the photos on the table.

          Her voice was low and angry when she said, right there on the recording for all the world to hear, "I taught him better than that."  She looked up at both of them.  "I taught him better than to go behind my back.  I taught him to avoid people like this."

          She shoved the pictures away from her and glared furiously at Lawford.  "Radim turned Ky into a person like that."

          Gillingham was quick to have that bit of testimony stricken from the record.  He might need Radim's people after all.  It wouldn't do to alienate them before the fight even started.

          Lawford was shrewd, though, and made it perfectly clear to the recorder just what to strike and what to leave.

          "My son was not like them," she spat. 

          Her words reverberated back to her and she turned dead pale.  One hand flew up to cover her mouth, like she was about to be sick.  Gillingham moved back an inch.  She drew in a sudden gasp, horribly loud in the quiet room, and then the sobs spilled out over the hand, still pressed to her mouth, as if she had been trying to hold it inside. 

          Gillingham started working to bring the proceedings to a close but not before Shana Morton sobbed out her apology to Lawford, dragging a hand over the faces in the photos and saying over and over that she hadn't known. 

          And Gillingham hated Lawford most for what he did next.  He put his hand over hers, damn him, and said that he was sorry, too. 

          It still galled him.  Out here in the hallway, rushing Shana Morton back to the office so he could go over damage control with her, so he could soothe her fears and work on strategy, even now he wanted to know just what the hell Lawford had meant by that "I'm sorry".  He wasn't sorry, damn him.  He couldn't possibly be sorry.  He got what he wanted, didn't he?  Where did he get off pulling that "sorry" act? 

          He hadn't expected Lawford's information to be quite so complete in the time he had given the man to prepare.  Perhaps he had to give the man more credit.  Gillingham detested having to adjust his opinions of people—especially adjusting them upward.

          He glowered ahead and remembered only just in the nick of time to keep his sympathetic face for the woman beside him, who was still dabbing at her eyes with the wet tissue crumpled tightly in her fist.  She held herself stiffly away from the guiding hand he was trying to press to her elbow.

          That irritated him, too.  He was her attorney after all, and half the time she acted like he was the enemy.

          "I know that was difficult," Gillingham said finally.

          She didn't appear to have heard.

          "You did fine," he said reassuringly.  "Just fine."  He said it smoothly, knowing full well it was a lie.  She could have done a lot better.  To be exact, it would have been much better if she had not been so appalled at her son's choice in companions and kept her wrath focused on the defense lawyer and the ATF agent who killed the three boys like a properly hysterical mother should.

          "He wasn't like those others," Shana said firmly, flatly. 

Gillingham barely heard her.  Up ahead, a figure coming out of his office suite caught his eye.

          "Tyson wasn't like them," Shana repeated more firmly at Gillingham's lack of response.  "But no one will believe that once that attorney tells everyone about them."

          She looked over at him to see his attention was elsewhere.

          "Would you excuse me a minute," Gillingham said, and incredibly, just like that, he left her standing in the hall while he took off in a long-legged hurry toward his office.

          A tall man in a black duster appeared to be just coming out of Gillingham's office door.  Gillingham raised his voice and moved to intercept him. 

          She found her steps drawn toward them.  Then the man turned, and Shana stopped.

          The discussion was short and animated, although Shana could not hear many of the words.  She moved forward a few more steps, watching them.

          Gillingham's tone sounded upset, and Shana couldn't help but admit to being glad to see him off balance, to lose that oily politeness that clung to him like a slug trail on a sidewalk.  That alone drew her forward another few steps until she could hear more clearly.

          "It had better all be here," Gillingham growled out threateningly.

          The man didn't seem threatened.  She watched him.  She could not say she knew the man, but he was etched in her memory among the shards of moments too bright and painfully clear among the dusky fog of the last few painful weeks. 

          He did not appear to have seen her at all.  "Are you making an accusation?"  he asked.  There was a smile with it.  All white teeth and no warmth at all. 

          "Oh you'd like that, wouldn't you?" Gillingham growled back.  He held up a fat white envelope in his left hand.  "Don't think for a moment I won't check this."

          The smile widened fractionally, sending a shiver up Shana's spine.  Gillingham was too wound up, or too dense to notice. 

          "And," Gillingham added.  "you can be sure the Bureau will hear my complaints."

          The man's head snapped up and back.  Even from this distance, she felt his gaze fall on her.

          Shana froze.

          So did he. 

          Then he shifted his gaze back to Gillingham, measuring him slowly.  He gave another slow smile before dismissing Gillingham from his attention with hardly even a nod.

          He looked back at Shana, where she stood frozen in her tracks.  Then he stepped past Gillingham, who turned in utter confusion.  He came toward Shana.

          He halted, three feet in front of her, filling her entire view of the hallway.  Somewhere behind him, Gillingham was talking again, but no one was listening.

          He looked at her in silence for a moment, and she could not think of one damn thing to say to him.  She knew exactly who he was.  From the cemetery.  From the hospital.  From the worst night of her life. 

          She wanted to forget him. 

          She hated him for the agency he represented.  For his silent presence on the television, supporting the very man who took her future, her joy, her reason for everything she did. 

          But she remembered that same silence as he sat with her in that stark white room that stunk of acrid scent antiseptic, devoid of hope.  He gave her no platitudes and offered her nothing except the silent mercy of someone who knows when there is nothing to say and that nothing can be done. 

          She hated him for knowing that.  She hated him for being the only human being to stand that vigil with her.  She hated him for being there to witness her grief, to see Tyson at his end, and not as the boy he had been. 

          At least she wanted to hate him. 

          But she couldn't.

          Because alone among those outside the tiny circle of her mother and herself, he had asked nothing from her.  He had simply stayed.  Without invitation or permission, or even offering reasons, he had stayed. 

          And when it was over, he waited until she found the strength to leave that room.  He walked with her down the hallway, and she had known, even then, that if she had fallen, if her legs had given out the way they seemed to want to, that he would have helped her up, still silent and solid, mouth drawn down in a frown, and eyes filled with a pain of their own. 

          She could not hate him.  He was the only one who knew. 

          She had guessed then, as he looked at her with eyes full of a frightening grief—not pity and not consolation—that he had known what was coming.  His expression had filled her with a kind of dread. 

          There he was, uninvited and unwelcome.  But as much as she hated to admit it, she had needed someone.  Not a doctor's mask or a clinical knowledge.  She just needed a human being.  Maybe anyone would have done. 

          But he was the one who was there.  His own discomfort plainly written on his face, he took a chair out of the way.  He stood back and did not pretend he had a right to it, to see the final moments of her baby's life or her bare and humiliating grief.

          He delivered her to the lobby and when she looked up from her mother's lap through eyes that could barely see, he had simply faded away. 

          She never asked his name or expected to see him again.

          She remembered the cemetery and how Cyril D'Aprix's self-righteous yapping caught him unawares at the headstones that bore his own last name.  His dignity had impressed her, as he drew back from a place that he had every right in the world to be, and Shana had finally understood why she couldn't hate him the way she wanted to. 

          In the whole sea of faces surrounding her, in a city full of people going about their lives, they were the only two people in the world who really understood how everything, the world and all that was in it, had changed forever. 

          Here in Gillingham's sterile office building, she had lost her words but not her manners or her pride. 

          She held out her hand.

          He looked at it oddly but did not take it.  She could see the outline of his knuckles where his hands were clenched in his pockets.

          Instead he looked at her intently, assessingly and she held his gaze.

          In the end, he still didn't say anything, but one hand slid out of his pocket into her palm, pausing only long enough to deposit a small, white business card into her hand and then withdraw back to his pocket.

          She closed her hand around the card without looking at it.  Her eyes stayed on his face.  He gave her what she might have mistaken for the tiniest of smiles if not for the way the green eyes turned down at the corners. 

          Then Gillingham was in their space telling him this was harassment and that he had gone too far.  And if he thought they didn't already know about his trespassing at Kyle Lebec's funeral rites, then he was sorely mistaken.

          He didn't say anything at all.  He nodded respectfully once, to Shana alone, and turned away.

          And while Gillingham was distracted by Agent Larabee's departure, Shana slipped the card into her pocket.

          She had no intention of contacting him ever.  She was steady on her own two feet.  Her world was oriented toward herself now, and she had her own needs to meet.

          Still, as uninvited as the man himself, the card seemed to lend her a little strength, so she kept it. 

          When Gillingham turned back to her, she wore her business face.  Gillingham had seen enough of her pain.  She would not display it anymore.

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

          Gillingham was a quick little bastard.  Chris would give him credit for that much—and only that much.  Travis was calling down to the bullpen even before Chris got back.  In fact, Josiah called Chris on the cell phone just as he was parking his truck in the garage, giving him the option to run.

          But that option just wasn't in his makeup.  He had little patience for people who couldn't own up to their own idiocy—himself included.

          He did wonder just what had Gillingham so pissed off that, of all the issues and problems that this case must certainly represent for him, complaining about a marginally inappropriate delivery of sealed materials had climbed right to the top of the man's priority list.  The case must not be going well.  That thought caused a tight little smile to blossom on Chris's face.

          It didn't last long.

          Chris's arrival in the bullpen was heralded by Vin's appreciative whistle and slow mocking applause.  Nathan and Buck both shook their heads in disbelief.  J.D. was glowering at him.

          "I know," Chris said, holding up a hand and forestalling any forthcoming gleeful reports of exactly how many times Travis had called in the last five minutes.  "I'm going."

          He hung his coat on the hook on the inside of his door, tightened the knot on his tie and went out to the elevators without another word.

          The elevator was typically slow, too slow.  Normally he would have just taken the stairs, but he wasn't in a particular hurry to get another scolding. 

          From the corner of his eye, he watched an unmistakably Buck-shaped figure stalk toward him from the direction of the bullpen.  It was too late to try a stairwell escape, so Chris stabbed at the up button again—in vain.

          Buck sidled right up to him, shifted his gaze around, and lowered his voice.

          "Just what the hell did you do down there?" he asked pointedly.

          "Nothing," Chris answered curtly.

          Buck looked at him doubtfully.

          "I delivered the papers," Chris said.  He poked the button again.

          "Well that was your first mistake," Buck hissed. 

          "I'm a duly appointed officer of the justice system," Chris answered.

          Buck snorted.  "Did you hit him?"

          "No," Chris answered.  His feet shifted impatiently. 

          "Did you threaten him?" Buck asked, lowering his voice another notch.

          "No," Chris said, watching the number indicators glow and switch off as the elevator car moved imperviously through its metal tunnel toward them. 

          Buck frowned.  "Well, what the hell did you do?"

          Chris turned to glower back at him.  "I guess I'll find out when Travis tells me," he retorted.

          There was a ding.

          Buck's eyes got narrower, as if he could read somewhere on Chris's face what he wasn't saying. 

          Not that he could, but Chris looked abruptly away anyway.

          "I hate to say I told you so…" Buck said to the side of Chris's head.

          "No you don't," Chris replied flatly, stepping away from Buck and into the elevator. 

          In fact, "I told you so" might have been Buck's four favorite words.  He loved to say it and took every possible opportunity.

          Buck grinned.  "Good point," he replied happily.  "So, yeah, I told you so."

          Chris let the elevator door close without comment.

          Buck returned to the bullpen, where J.D. and Vin were having a heated discussion.  Well, at least on J.D.'s side it was heated. 

          "Helping me?" he demanded to know.  "Just what the hell do you people think this word 'help' means?"

          "Don't include me in this conversation," Nathan replied testily.

          Ignoring J.D. completely, Vin turned to Buck.  "What did he do?"

          Buck shrugged.  Then he grinned.  "Took the heat off of J.D. for a couple of hours, though."

          Vin's gaze shifted sideways to J.D. as Josiah commented.  "There.  You see?  We _can_ be helpful."

          "What do you mean _we_?" Vin replied.

          Vin looked from J.D. to Buck and shook his head.  "Stupid," he said, indicating Chris's door with a tilt of his head.

          "Yup," Buck agreed.

 

 

          ATF Assistant Director Orin Travis, former lawyer and federal judge, seldom bothered to get upset.  He let his stern voice and steely eyes make the impression for him.  Today was different.

          Chris hardly had time to report to Travis's assistant that he had arrived in the outer office before Travis bellowed out his office door for her to "send Larabee in here."

          She flinched and waved Chris in.

          Orin was standing when Chris walked in.  Not a good sign.  Neither was the angry glare leveled in his direction.

          Chris was not invited to sit.

          Travis's fingers twitched as if begging for permission to throttle him.

          "Shut the door," Travis thundered.

          Chris closed the door behind him, bracing himself to fend off an attack he couldn't yet identify. 

          "I have to ask," Travis said, his voice taking on a disturbing calm as he took a measured step toward his senior agent in charge of Team Seven.  "Just what the hell did you think you were doing?"

          Chris worked quickly to figure out the direction Travis was going, but he knew he was still a few steps behind.  Even so, he tried hard to sound matter of fact rather than sarcastic, but the truth was the truth.  "Delivering the papers," he said.

          Travis took another step toward him, steel-grey eyebrows dropping another half inch.  The sarcasm in the AD's voice vibrated through the office air.  "And what did you _do_ while you were delivering the papers?"

          Chris frowned back at him.  "Nothing." 

          Travis stepped right into his space but Chris held his ground.  He'd had drill sergeants and superiors, thugs and government lackeys in his face before.  He'd had enemy soldiers and psychopaths threaten to kill him.  He'd been shot, beaten, blown up, and worse by enemy combatants and angry felons alike.  He could handle this, too.  He would just have to hold the line until he knew exactly what Travis was talking about.

          The stoicism did not please the AD.  Travis glowered right into the eyes of his senior agent.  He spoke through his teeth to avoid actually shouting.  "Then why is there a complaint on my desk that you harassed his client when you went down to deliver papers you had no business even handling?"

          If Travis didn't know better, he might have thought he saw a flash of surprise.  Then the green eyes got hard. 

          "I did not harass his client," Larabee said emphatically, his own voice deceptively soft.

          Travis pulled back an inch and no farther.

          "Did you see his client?" Travis asked, feeling like he was back in the courtroom again, pulling testimony out of a hostile witness.  Sometimes there was precious little difference when dealing with Chris Larabee.  Usually the man had his reasons—and good ones.  But this, badgering this poor woman, even for the sake of protecting J.D. Dunne, was beyond Travis's comprehension.

          "I saw her, yes." Chris answered.  His flat tone was a warning. 

          Travis was not in the habit of dignifying threats.  "Did you speak to her?" he returned stonily, wondering whether Chris Larabee wasn't truly the most exasperating employee on earth.

          "No," was the terse reply.

          Travis blinked.  "No?" he asked just to be sure he had heard correctly.  "You didn't speak to her?" he clarified.

          "No," Chris repeated. 

          It was a flat-out denial.  Travis narrowed his eyes.  The man was exasperating, yes, irritating absolutely, trying at the best of times, but he wasn't a liar. 

          Travis retraced his footsteps back around to his desk, giving himself a moment to consider what that denial might mean in the face of the evidence.

          Larabee stayed rooted to the floor in front of the door, shoulders straight and head high, the hands at his side betraying his military training.

          Travis's irritation did not ebb one bit, but reason told him that he probably wasn't going to get very far shouting at a man who had been heavily trained in how to resist interrogation and out-and-out torture.

          He lowered himself down into his desk chair and folded his hands on the desktop.  His voice stayed steely as he retraced the facts, reading directly from the hastily scribbled note on his desk.  "Shana Morton's lawyer says you exhibited unprofessional and threatening behavior toward him, then approached his client willfully with the intent to intimidate her."

          "I did not," Chris shot back with a vehemence in direct contrast to his previous responses.

          Travis turned the paper toward Chris, even though he knew the man couldn't read it at that distance.

          "Which part didn't you do?" Travis asked.  He didn't even try not to sound sarcastic. 

          Something snapped shut in Chris's expression.  Closing right down before Travis could even have the satisfaction of reading it properly.

          "I did not intimidate her," Chris said, sounding like the words had been forced out of him. 

          A light bulb went on in Travis's head.  He thought about the press conference he had ordered Chris to attend and his strict orders to his volatile senior agent regarding casting death glares onto the gathered members of the press.  He thought about six feet of special-forces-trained lethal standing over a felon.

          Some people didn't need to speak to be threatening.

          And Chris well knew the power he had to intimidate.

          A hot anger bubbled up from inside Travis.  He had lost a son, too.  He knew what that felt like. 

          "I would think," Travis said coldly, "That you, of all people, would have some sympathy for her situation."

          Chris's head pulled back, almost far enough to contact with the door behind him.  His gaze burned hot and furious. 

          _Finally_ , Travis thought with gratification.  He seized the opportunity.  Larabee had passed up the opportunity to explain himself.  He wasn't getting the chance now.

          "Let me make this clear," Travis intoned, his voice carrying the full force of his ire.  "Unless you are summoned by a judge or an attorney, you are not to approach within a hundred feet of that woman or her attorney.  If you are in a building and they walk in, you walk out." 

          Larabee flinched, but Travis wasn't even close to done.

          "If you are in the cemetery and they walk in, you walk out."

          His hands clenched hard.

          "If you are in the Saloon, and their pictures show up on the television, you keep your damn mouth shut, and you walk out."

          Travis stood up and spelled it out slowly.  "You don’t discuss, glare at, stand over, approach, intimidate, or give the impression of intimidating this woman."

          "Do I make myself clear?" He rumbled. 

          Larabee didn't answer.  The flat, dead chill of his expression was answer enough. 

          He left the room without being dismissed and without another word. 

          The thought niggled at Travis a long while later that Chris had confessed absolutely nothing.

          Buck was waiting for him outside Travis's office, sitting on the corner of another agent's desk, flirting outrageously, all on pretense.

          Chris tried to walk right past him.

          But Buck caught up with him easily enough.

          Buck had stood in Travis's outer office, making up excuses so that Travis's assistant would let him stay, even though he knew she knew exactly what he was doing, which was eavesdropping—and blatantly.

          Buck barely made it out of the office in time.  As it was, when Chris came out again, Buck's ears were still burning with Travis's explicit and direct orders.  He knew Chris had seen him.  He had planted himself where he would be seen.  But Chris ignored him and kept walking.

          Buck caught him at the elevator.

          "Tell me you didn't."  Buck hissed in disbelief.

          Chris turned burning eyes on him.

          "Okay," Buck said easily, soothingly.  "You didn't."  Not that Buck had thought Chris really would have tried to intimidate the woman.  The lawyer, hell yeah.  In fact he had hoped that part was true.  But the woman?  Nah, not the woman.  She wasn't the bad guy here.  Even if she was suing J.D.

          The elevator door opened.  Buck stepped in and pressed the button for their floor.

          Chris turned abruptly to the left and headed for the stairs.

          Buck sighed. 

          The rest of the afternoon was going to be hell.

 

 

          Every light in the barn was blazing.  Vin found Chris balanced on a three-legged stool outside of Pony's stall, with a rag and a bottle of oil, furiously rubbing down a bridle.  Assorted pieces of tack lay in a pile at his feet.  Pony had stretched his elegant black neck over the stall door just far enough to reach down and lip Chris's shoulder. 

          Vin damped down on the smile that threatened to break out at the sight.  When Chris got pissed off, everyone dumb enough to stick their heads up within a ten mile radius tended to pay the price, but the barn and its residents tended to profit. 

          From a stall across the way, Peso whickered a greeting, and Chris scowled down the aisle at Vin.

          Undaunted, Vin moved down toward him anyway, ambling across the way to greet his ornery horse before greeting his ornery boss.

          Chris said nothing the entire time Vin stood there, scratching behind Peso's ears, rubbing the star on the gelding's knobby forehead and blowing into his nose.  Vin took his time, while Peso nosed at his jacket front hoping for a treat.  The horse snorted and tossed his head when he found none, and gave Vin the evil eye before turning indignantly away.

          Vin turned and leaned his back nonchalantly against the stall door and stood there a while longer regarding his friend.  Chris finished one bridle and picked up another one without a word of greeting.  But Vin didn't mind.  He wasn't a man who minded silence. 

          And Chris hadn't asked him to leave. 

          For a long time there was no other sound but the horses moving in their stalls, quieting down for the night.  Peso eventually came back and hung his big heavy head down on Vin's shoulder.  Vin stroked the long nose with one hand. 

          "You want some help with that?" Vin asked eventually, poking his foot in the general direction of the pile of tack at Chris's feet.

          Chris didn't answer.  Not directly.  Instead he rubbed at his forehead with the knuckles of one hand, which told Vin loud and clear that Chris was not sitting out here because some old tack needed to be oiled.  But then he already knew that.

          Chris raised his head to regard Vin through eyes that were still angry, and Vin stood his ground through the scrutiny.

          "You wanna talk about it, or do you just wanna shoot something?" Vin asked finally.

          That got a flash of something vaguely resembling a smile, although not a pleasant one.

          Vin knew damn well that "talk about it" wouldn't be Chris's first choice.

          "Thought you boys went to the Saloon," Chris said, returning his attention to the bridle in his hands.  It had seen better days and probably wasn't worth the effort it would take to fix up.  He closed up the bottle of oil.

          Vin shrugged.  "We did," he answered. 

          He watched Chris put the bottle and the rag into a tool caddy by his feet.  Vin bent and scooped up the pile of tack.

          Most of it had seen better days, in fact.  Apparently Larabee had already worked his way through the good tack and had enough anger left for the pieces that ought to just be thrown out—or sold as antiques.

          "Buy me a beer," Vin suggested.  "And I'll tell you all about my day."

          "I don't want to hear it," Chris grumbled, but he followed Vin back to the tack room to put away his tools.

          They turned out all the lights in the barn, and Chris followed Vin up the front steps into the house. 

          There were three messages on the answering machine.  All from Buck, Vin noted scrolling through the caller id, while Chris washed his hands in the kitchen and looked for the beer in the fridge.

          He came back out with two bottles from some trendy microbrewery that Vin had never heard of, and he wondered vaguely, as he tipped the open bottle into his mouth, whose stash Chris had raided. 

          They went straight through the dark living room and out onto the side deck.  Vin leaned his elbows on a railing and watched the stars just beginning to poke through the fabric of the sky.  Chris stood beside him, facing the opposite direction.  His head was tipped back toward the sky, but Vin knew his mind was not on the stars.

          He clinked his bottle against Chris's and turned his back to the yard.

          "Buck called three times," Vin said.  He didn't have to check the caller id to know that much.  Buck had called twice from the Saloon before Vin even left. 

          Chris only grunted his acknowledgment.

          "He's just making sure you're all right," Vin said. 

          In the growing darkness, Vin sensed more than saw Chris's eyes slide toward him. 

          "I'm all right," Chris said flatly.

          Vin nodded at that.  It was certainly true that Chris didn't get fired or suspended, and it wasn't like Travis to inflict bodily harm.  But still that didn't mean Chris was all right.

          Vin turned his head to look Chris in the eye.  

          Chris's returning gaze was stone-hard, which as much as told Vin that whatever happened today had Chris a mite rattled, which was an unusual enough occurrence to bear looking into but also that Chris didn't want to talk about it, which was a familiar enough situation for Vin to know well enough to leave it alone.. 

          He took a pull at his beer while he considered whether he really wanted to navigate the minefield ahead.

          If placed under interrogation and forced to confess at knifepoint, Vin might have said he and Chris had a certain understanding, some harmonic vibe, or a meeting of the  minds.  Whatever you wanted to call it, somehow, something between them had always been in concert.  It was a bond Vin realized now that he had come to rely on more heavily than he was completely comfortable with.  The same way he was not sure how he felt about being on a team, and depending on people as much as they depended on him. 

          Maybe Vin didn't have all the facts and common experiences Buck did, from his long years of friendship with Chris, but Vin didn't need a whole lot of facts.  He simply understood the man.  Like Josiah had often said, they spoke the same language. 

          He could read Chris more easily than he had ever read any kind of book or article or magazine in his life.  Just the look on Chris's face told him to leave it alone.  No good would come of asking.

          But Vin and Chris had a lot in common, and like Larabee, just because Vin knew better, didn't guarantee that he was going to play it smart. 

          He took another long swallow then casually observed, "Buck said you didn't have much to say up there in Travis's office."

          Chris looked at Vin for a long uncomfortable second.  "Buck needs to mind his own business." 

          Now it was Vin's turn to look exasperated.  Whatever happened down there at the attorney's office affected Chris and more'n likely would pull J.D. along for the ride.  If Chris didn't know by now that was twice the minimum Buck required to wedge himself into this, then Chris was dumber than dirt.  Vin knew for sure Chris was way too smart and knew Buck way too well to believe that load of shit himself, let alone think Vin was gonna buy it.

          "According to Buck," Vin said drily, "you and J.D. _are_ his business."  

          Something that sounded almost like a snort of agreement came from the dark shadows that hid Chris's face. 

          Vin knew a door when he saw one.

          "So what happened down there?"

          He put it casually, tone of voice mild, almost neutral.  Like commenting on the recent fair weather.  Like he didn't care one way or the other what Chris had to say.  Except he knew he wasn't fooling Chris either.

          Chris's eyes slid away and glared hard at the siding of the house.  "There's nothing to tell," he said flatly. 

          Vin nodded, casting another look around what he could see of the yard. 

          "You know I believe you, Cowboy," he said.  It was an understatement.  He knew for dead certain, was so sure that he would stake job, life, soul, and reputation on it, that Chris wouldn't have tried to indimidate a woman who just lost her son.  Not if his own life depended on it.  Not even for J.D.  But still…  He gave voice to his thoughts.  "But lawyers don't start yelling harassment over nothing happening."

          The look of undiluted skepticism Chris gave him made Vin almost choke on his beer.

          He gestured surrender.  "Okay, yeah, they do," he admitted.  "But Travis don't usually pay attention."  He squinted at Chris in an effort to read more of the man's face.  "Why is this different?"

          Chris shifted, his face moving more into the light, and Vin could clearly see the features twist into something almost pained.  The he blew out a long sigh.  "I went down and delivered the documents." 

          That alone was a stupid enough move to earn a truckload of shit rolling down on him from upper levels.  It was a wonder Travis hadn't chewed his ass harder over that.

          Vin nodded.  His thoughts must have been written on his face because Chris glowered at him a little harder and explained, "The messenger left without the files I copied."

          "Oh," Vin said wisely.  "So you volunteered."

          "No sense making the man wait," Chris answered drily. 

          Vin grinned.  "Is this the part where I get to say 'That was stupid'?"

          "Buck already covered that part of the lecture," Chris replied.  He paused to take a sip of his beer.  "And Travis pretty much cornered the market on 'What were you thinking'?"

          Vin only shrugged.  From what he'd heard from Buck, Chris had seen an opportunity to get a look at this Gillingham guy.  Vin could understand the need to get a visual on the enemy and the hostile terrain.  It would have figured all neat and tidy if the attorney had only complained that Larabee harassed _him._   That Vin could have seen.  That would seem reasonable.  And Travis probably wouldn't have said a damn thing about it.  But that wasn't what happened.  The attorney said Larabee harassed the woman.  And that didn't figure.  Didn't figure at all.

          Vin reckoned he was knee deep in it already, so what the hell.  He might as go all the way.

          "So how did you go from deliverin' papers to a harassment charge?"

          Chris's face was unexpectedly fierce.  "I didn't harass her," he said vehemently. 

          Vin held up both hands, beer included and wondered just what kind of a nerve he had struck.  "Ain't no one who knows you thinks you did," he said calmly.  "I'm just trying' to wrap my head around it.  That's all." 

          He half expected Chris to tell him to mind his own business, or more likely to fuck off.  But then Chris turned his eyes up to the stars.  He seemed to deflate a little.  He leaned back against the porch railing.

          "I gave Gillingham the papers," Chris said without looking at Vin.  His tone sounded like a man on the witness stand.  "Gillingham thinks I harassed her because I approached her in the hallway outside his office."

          Vin held his face still.  Delivering the papers to the attorney was one kind of dumb.  But approaching the complainant was a whole other brand of stupid all together.  Of course, he could think of reasons why Chris would have done it.  But couldn't believe he actually did.  What had Chris said to her?

          Whatever Chris said to the woman was probably what put the attorney right over the edge.  And maybe that was the source of the edge in Chris's voice.  Maybe he had not meant to harass her, but despite his reputation, Chris didn't always realize how threatening he could be when a person didn't know him.

          Vin was aware that he didn't have the moth's ignorance as an excuse, but he said it anyway.  "So whatever you said her lawyer took the wrong way…"

          He had meant to let the statement hang.  The solution to the mystery. 

          He didn't see Chris's reply coming.

          "Hard to do that when I didn't actually say anything."  The tone dripped pure acid.

          Vin jerked his head around to look at Chris.  "You didn't say anything?"

          There was silence.

          "Nothing at all?"

          Chris's flat return stare told Vin that the man wasn’t about to repeat it.

          Which was too bad because even in the book of strange shit that Larabee sometimes did for unfathomable reasons known only to himself, approaching a complainant for the purpose of not saying anything at all had to take the cake.  Of course, Chris could say a hell of a lot without actually saying anything. 

          Vin shook his head.  Chris was adamant that he did not harass her.  Vin had to believe that the man wouldn't have tried to intimidate her.  At least not on purpose.  Or of his own volition.

          He tried another tack.  Maybe it wasn't actually Chris who was at fault here.

          "What did she say to you?"

          "Nothing," Chris answered, staring right past Vin and out into the yard. 

          Vin frowned.  Most of the time he thought he was a pretty good investigator.  This was not going to be one of those moments.

          He looked hard at Chris, an arm's length away, illuminated in the porchlight his face partially shrouded in shadows. 

          He shook his head.  And gave up on investigation, asking flat out, "How do you build a harassment suit out of nobody saying nothing?"

          Chris shifted uneasily.  "I gave her my card."

          Vin stared at him and stared some more, and while he was staring, the word just came right out without even asking his permission.  "Why?"

          Even knowing the expression on Chris's face damned any more progress this conversation might have made, curiosity made him wait for an answer he knew wasn't coming. 

          As Vin expected, Chris pulled away.  He hardly even moved, hardly changed his expression, but Vin felt the distance yawn between them.

          "I didn't intimidate her," Chris said icily.  "If Gillingham wants to build a harassment suit, then he can damn well go right ahead."

          Vin's eyebrows shot up.  "He ain't exactly waiting for your permission, Pard."

          Chris's vaguely obscene gesture was meant to indicate exactly how much he didn't care, or maybe more accurately, how tired he was of defending himself for something he was convinced he didn't even do.  Or maybe he was finally telling Vin to fuck off. 

          Either way he didn't stand around and wait for Vin's reply. 

          He went into the house without so much as a look over his shoulder and shut the door behind him.

          Vin stood there in the odd combination of porchlight and moonlight and tried to wrap his head around what Chris had told him.  He handed his business card to the mother of a slain child without saying a word to her.  He could sure as hell see why the woman's lawyer would think that was harassment.  Or at least downright stone cold.  That made him squint harder.

          He knew Chris better than that.  Chris was not that cold.  He gave the woman his card for a reason.  Only Vin couldn't think of one possible sane reason why. 

          And it was clear that Chris was done talking. 

          Vin stayed outside on the porch long enough to finish his beer.  Then he stayed and watched television long enough to let the alcohol get out of his system before he climbed behind the wheel of his car. 

          The two of them sat in the living room and looked at the television and didn’t say anything more about the big purple elephant in the room.  Then Vin mumbled a word or two about seeing Chris tomorrow before letting himself out the front door. 

          Buck called Vin before he even reached the city limits.

          "So?  Chris tell you what happened down at the lawyer's office?" the man demanded.

          "Nothing happened," Vin answered sardonically.  "A big fat nothing."

          Buck muttered a swear word Vin couldn't quite catch.  "Well that don't make much sense.  You don't file a harassment suit over nothing."

          Vin rolled his eyes, which would have been more effective if Buck could have seen him. 

          "Well it was a good try anyway," Buck said finally.

          Vin frowned.  "I didn't go over there to interrogate him," he said tersely.

          "Sure," Buck agreed.  "But you did ask him all the same," he said all too knowingly. 

          Vin hated that enough to grit his teeth.  But the truth was the truth.  No point denying it.  "Yeah, I asked him," he grumbled. 

          "And?" Buck prompted impatiently. 

          Vin told himself to just hang up, but somehow couldn't follow his own wise advice.  "He said he approached her.  But nobody said nothing to nobody."

          "That don't make sense," Buck said hotly.  "There's got to be more to it than that."

          Vin hesitated.  But then he said it.  "He gave her his card."

          There was a gratifying moment of silence.  "What the hell for?" Buck blurted out finally.

          "How the hell should I know?" Vin shot back.  "If you wanna know so bad, drive on over and ask him yourself."

          Buck blew out an exasperated breath, but his tone was placating when he said  "It was still a good try," 

          "It wasn't a _try,_ " Vin repeated.  One short conversation was enough to tell Vin to leave this alone.  Hell, Buck sure ought to have known to leave it, too.  But when Buck got his teeth into something, he could be stubborn as an old bulldog and thick as a post.  Like now.  Then Vin realized Buck had already hung up.

          He pounded one hand on the steering wheel.  Dammit, he knew, he just knew that Buck wasn't going to let this go.  He was going to pick at it and needle it until he ferreted out just what incredible flash of stupidity caused Chris to give the woman suing J.D. his business card. 

          The worst part was that Vin couldn’t even say rightly whether it was mostly because Buck was concerned about how it was going to affect his friends or whether he just couldn't stand not knowing.  All Vin was really sure about was that Buck was going to drag him right down with him until Chris got pissed off at both of them.

          In his head, Vin could hear Ezra, spouting off ironically about innocent victims and the injustice of it all.  But then Ezra was undercover and therefore safely out of harm's way.

 

 

          The apartment was trendily and expensively furnished.  Not that Gerald Gillingham ever invited anyone here.  It was trendy and expensive for his own enjoyment.  On a sandstone coaster on the edge of an end table, a nice eighteen-year-old single malt sat, all but forgotten in all the excitement of the moment and the anticipation of triumph.

          There was not an electronic gadget that Gerald Gillingham didn't own, and at the moment he was using several of them.  He was digitally recording several news channels for perusal.  He had purchased copies of all the local daily papers and a couple of national ones.  He was busy gathering snapshots of the newswebs, and checking out the demographics on some local radio stations, weighing the pros and cons of music stations that only gave sound bites but had a wider audience against talk stations where the discussions might be more in depth, but the audience was smaller and more vocal.  It was a tough call. 

          Perfect opportunities didn't come along very often, at least not by themselves of their own volition, and not without a lot more help and massaging on his part.  This one was a rarity.  Thus he wanted to be sure to play it to the hilt.

          He had the perfect mouthpiece at his disposal.  All he needed was to select the proper outlet to plug Cyril D'Aprix into.  Then he'd wind up the little street warrior and watch him do what he did best. 

          It was the perfect opportunity to create a groundswell of public opinion that could virtually guarantee any local jury picked for this trial would contain a solid element of people sympathetic to the poor aggrieved mother who stood alone against a tyrannical government.  It seemed like mere minutes ago that Gillingham has been railing at his investigators to find something to turn Dunne's ludicrously unimpeachable record into something impeachable and in particular to make his seemingly reasonable actions seem aggressive and unwarranted.  Now, he had it:  Aggressive, unwarranted, unprofessional, and, if he played it right, downright evil behavior. 

          So what if it wasn't Dunne who did it?  It was Dunne's direct boss.  The man who appeared on the television along with Dunne's other stupid associate, the loudmouth with the mustache, who had already been forced to make a public apology for his inflammatory statements.  The taint of association was a hard smell to get out once it had been allowed to properly set.  Especially when it was set into a fabric like a faceless, bureaucratic, impersonal federal agency riddled with fiascos, waste and probable corruption. 

          Gillingham decided that newsradio would be the best way to give credence to the stain of corruption.  After all, once it was on newsradio, it was news.  And the unwashed masses would always believe the news.  From the radio to the papers.  From the papers to FM sound bites between popular tunes and cheerfully vapid DJ's.  From there to the general conversation of the marginally educated, responsible middle class, outraged at any number of recent fiscally and politically irresponsible behaviors of their state and federal governments and their associated agencies.

          The beauty of it was breathtaking, really.

          Gillingham took a happy sip of his scotch and smiled even more broadly as he considered the gratifying fact that he was also relieved of the responsibility of building up much in the way of solid evidence of the impropriety of Agent—no Senior Agent—Larabee's actions.  Granted, Gillingham wasn't sure exactly what had transpired either earlier at Lebec's funeral or this afternoon in his own office building, but it didn't matter.  Appearances would speak eloquently for themselves. 

          And, Gillingham decided with comfortable indifference, if it turned out that he was wrong, it wouldn't matter.  News appeared on the front page and in lead stories on the nightly news.  Retractions got buried on pages people didn't read and didn't make the evening news at all. 

          Gillingham knew exactly what his first step would be. 

          He just took a minute to enjoy every sip of his exceedingly good scotch first.  After all, some moments in this life were made to be savored.

 

 

          Nathan Jackson and his fiancée had long since worked out the logistics of sharing one master bathroom between two people trying to get ready for different jobs at more or less the same time.  Wrapping his bath towel around his hips, Nathan used the hand towel to wipe the mist off the mirror so he could see to shave without cutting his own throat.  It was enough of a blessing to have a hot water heater that could accommodate two nice steamy showers back to back.  It was too much to ask of a blower to clear that much steam out of the bathroom in such a short time.  He thought once again about where on the priority repair list it would fall to buy a better fan and ventilation system for the bathroom.  Somewhere before putting new blacktop on the driveway and somewhere after installing new gutters on the house. 

          His thoughts were interrupted by Raine, calling his name.  There was a note of unexpected urgency in her voice.

          "What?" Nathan demanded, throwing the bathroom door open.

          She was bending over the small clock radio alarm on her nightstand, half dressed in dark nylons and a white blouse.

          "Listen!" she said, shushing him with one hand, all her attention still on fiddling with the volume controls. 

          As far as Nathan could tell, it was Raine's usual AM news show, not exactly NPR but still showcasing politics, events important to the larger Denver community, and national and world news.  Not a bad program, but too much talk grated on Nathan's nerves.  He preferred the news straight up first and commentary later.  He didn't tell Raine that.  Not anymore.  He'd get his daily dose of the headlines in the car and off the computer when he got to work.  Thus it was hard for Nathan to try to conceal his impatience while he waited to see just what had Raine all fired up this morning.

          "What am I listening to?" he finally demanded, unable to ignore any longer that he was still standing there in his towel.  Shaving cream still coated the lower half of one cheek, and a stray droplet of water was winding its maddeningly slow way downward between his shoulder blades. 

          "Listen!" Raine said again.  "Sandford has on Cyril D'Aprix, president of the west end Community Action League." She said it excitedly.

          Nathan frowned.  So far as he knew that was nothing to get excited about.  If you asked him, a man whose own politics had been described by Ezra Standish as just to the right of Marx and Lenin, D'Aprix was a yappy little troublemaker who spent all his time whipping people into a frenzy at supposed injustices all around him.  Nathan considered him just shy of a hatemonger, a man who promoted the culture of "victims of society", rather than building up the strength of a people empowered to work for change in their own lives.

          He felt his jaw tighten and was tempted to turn right around and go back into the bathroom and finish shaving for work. 

          Raine gave him an exasperated look, which told him he had apparently not been listening closely enough.

          She turned up the volume.

          This time it didn't take Nathan long to catch what Raine had tuned into right away.  He took a step closer and then another until he was standing right up next to her, practically leaning over the radio as if that would make what he was hearing make any more sense.

          "…Agent Dunne who was involved in the recent shootings of three teenagers on the west side," Miles Sanford's mellow bass tones clarified for his audience.  "And this was Agent Dunne's direct supervisor?"

          "Exactly," confirmed the higher, nearly lilting voice of Cyril D'Aprix.  "The Senior agent in charge of Agent Dunne's team in the ATF."

          Sandford exhaled.  "What you describe is fairly outrageous behavior," he said cautiously. 

          Nathan knew this was going to be bad.

          "It's a pattern of aggression and intimidation is what it is," D'Aprix said firmly and sounding like he was winding up a full head of steam.  "First this man…"

          "Agent Larabee," Sandford interrupted.

          "Yes," D'Aprix said, and Nathan caught a whiff of irritation at being interrupted.  But he rallied quickly.  "First, this senior ATF agent, Chris Larabee, shows up at the funeral of Kyle Lebec."

          "Doing what exactly?" Sandford said, sounding dubious enough to remind Nathan why he actually liked the man's morning show.  A parade of fools and hysterics might tromp through his studio on a regular basis, but Sandford always tried to remain reasonable.

          "I would characterize it as stalking," D'Aprix answered with just the right note of outrage.  "Imagine," he said, "the supervisor of the man who killed three teenage boys shows up at the funeral of one of the very boys his agent killed."

          "But what did he do?" Sandford pressed.

          Nathan sat down on the bed, damp towel forgotten.  Raine, too, stood stock still, half undressed.

          "Isn't it enough to show up, still armed, still in his suit, and stand on the hill overlooking the funeral, in full view of the family and friends of the boy that was killed?" D'Aprix said, his voice rising.  "Isn't that enough?"

          "But the ATF explained that," Sandford said. 

          "Come now," D'Aprix scoffed.  "And you don't find their explanation a little too convenient.  That he would come on that day, a little too coincidental?"

          Raine looked over her shoulder at Nathan. 

          Nathan shrugged.  He hadn't known that Chris had been at the cemetery on the day of the funeral, let alone at the actual time of the funeral.

          Raine moved back a step and sat down beside Nathan. 

          "Especially in light of yesterday's display," D'Aprix added.

          Raine's hand found her way into Nathan's.

          "Now you were there at the funeral," Sandford said.  "You witnessed that event with your own eyes."

          "Yes," D'Aprix said confidently.  "And when I confronted the man, he left immediately."

          Sandford made a sort of noncommittal grunt.  "Tell me about yesterday's incident then.  Were you there for that?"

          "I was not," D'Aprix admitted.  "It was Shana Morton's attorney who brought it to my attention."

          "Go on," Sandford said, sounding just a little bit intrigued.

          "You got to understand," D'Aprix said, swinging into some folksy sounding accent, a card that, in Nathan's opinion, no northeast coast middle-class suburbanite with a second-tier college education should ever try to play.  "This is a man who stands at least six feet, is Aryan blond…"

          Raine sucked in a breath.

          "And showed up at Shana Morton's attorney's office dressed in a black gangsta style duster."

          Raine raised an eyebrow at Nathan.  "Gangsta?" she asked.

          "More like Gunslinga," Nathan muttered.

          "No subtle message there," D'Aprix continued.  "According to Ms. Morton's attorney, one of the most prominent attorneys in the state," D'Aprix added, "this Agent Larabee had the audacity to push him right out of the way, and approach Ms. Morton himself, where," D'Aprix's voice rose again, like he was speaking from a soapbox or a pulpit, "He attempted to menace Ms. Morton in the hallway of her own attorney's building."

          "Did Mr. Gillingham, the attorney, give an account of what Agent Larabee said?" Sandford asked.  "I'm not clear that the agent actually threatened her in any way."

          "Isn't it clear enough?" D'Aprix returned, the righteous reproof heavy in his tone.  "Picture yourself as a somewhat diminutive woman of less than five and a half feet. Now look up into the angry face of an armed ATF agent well over six feet tall standing over you and tell me you would not be intimidated."

          Sandford conceded the point.

          "He is _not_ well over six feet tall," Nathan snapped at the radio.  Raine squeezed his hand.

          "Still," Sandford went on, "I don't understand what the man would hope to gain by this kind of behavior.  Clearly he would know that the department's reputation and Agent Dunne's are compromised enough by the events that have already transpired.  Attempting to influence a litigant by out and out intimidation seems to be a move too dumb to believe."

          "I believe it to be typical of law enforcement," D'Aprix said.  "Both to underestimate the will of the people and to resort to jackbooted thuggery and intimidation to regain control when one of the oppressed does attempt to rise up from under their thumb."

          Nathan swore.

          Raine turned and looked at him straight on.  "Chris would never do that," she stated with complete certainty.

          _No shit,_ Nathan really wanted to say but Raine didn't deserve to reap the attitude when it was Cyril D'Aprix who he really wanted to give attitude to, and a piece of his mind.  For a second, he entertained the idea of doing to D'Aprix exactly what he was accusing Chris of.

          Raine was still looking at him, her eyes narrow.  "So what _did_ he do down there at the attorney's office."

          Nathan let out a long exhale.  "I have no idea," he answered. 

          "Well this is not going to help J.D.," Raine said emphatically.

          _No shit!_   Nathan thought again. 

          He let go of Raine's hand and headed back to the bathroom.  Tempting as it was, today was not the day to call in sick.  He had a feeling what the team needed most was solidarity. 

          For a moment he envied Ezra.  Ever able to read the clues in the atmosphere, Standish had slid readily undercover mere days ago, and had successfully avoided coming up for air.  _Conniving little con artist._  

          _Slippery, conniving little con artist,_ Nathan amended. 

          _And smart,_ he conceded.  _Really damn smart._

 

 

          Chris was standing at the elevator doors, watching the numbers change when Nathan caught him. 

          "Chris," Nathan said breathlessly.

          Chris turned to see the man coming toward him at a jog.

          It wasn't a good sign.  His first instincts told him something had happened in the Colón investigation.

          Chris stepped sideways, blocking the elevator door open as Nathan slid by him into the empty car. 

          "Everything all right?" Chris asked, his voice carefully neutral.  There were a hundred potential disasters in their line of work.  There was no point in getting worked up over anything without good reason.  Still, it was in his nature to brace for the worst—largely because in his experience, the worst tended to happen a lot more than seemed really fair.

          He looked up into Nathan's serious brown eyes.

          "No," Jackson answered grimly.  "Cyril D'Aprix was on with Miles Sandford this morning."

          Chris turned his eyes back toward the floor indicator lights.  It wasn't a problem with Ezra's assignment, then. 

          "He was talking about you," Nathan said pointedly. 

          "Me?" Chris asked, and he sounded genuinely puzzled.

          "Yes, you," Nathan said, trying not to sound as exasperated as he felt.  "And the Lebec funeral, and yesterday at Shana Morton's attorney's office…"

          "Must have been a short show," Chris said dismissively, eyes still on the floor count..  "There isn't much to tell about either one."

          "Maybe so," Nathan said testily, "But he's telling whatever he's got for all he's worth."

          Chris did look at him then.  His eyes narrowed.  "What exactly is he saying?"

          The elevator announced their arrival at their floor.

          Nathan shifted his weight and tried to ignore his sudden self-consciousness.  He had never pulled his punches with Chris before and he was determined not to start now.

          "He said you were at the cemetery during the Lebec funeral," Nathan said, and tried not sound like he was accusing Chris of something too.

          "I was there," Chris said evenly.  "But I didn't know the funeral was going on until it was over."

          Nathan turned to look at him.  "You didn't know?" 

          "Not until D'Aprix came marching up and started making accusations," Chris answered.

          "So what happened yesterday at the attorney's office," Nathan demanded.

          Chris stopped so suddenly, Nathan nearly plowed right into him. 

          Nathan towered several inches over his boss, but the look Chris turned on him, had him backing up a step.

          "You got something to say, Nathan?" Chris asked, voice low.  His gaze was absolutely unblinking.

          Nathan swallowed once.  Honesty had gotten him in trouble more than once, but he wasn't about to change his ways now.

          "I'm saying it doesn't look good," he said, returning Chris's gaze steadily.  "And D'Aprix's selling it for all it's worth."

          Chris turned away and continued on toward the bullpen.

          Nathan vented a frustrated breath and lengthened his stride to catch him.  "He's making serious allegations, Chris," Nathan said.  "He's talking intimidation, coercion, menacing." 

          When that got no response, he added, "He called you an Aryan _and_ a gangsta."

          "He ought to make up his mind," Chris snorted.

          Nathan took full advantage of his height and the long legs that came with it, overtaking his boss and getting between Chris and the door to the bullpen.

          "This is not going to help J.D.," Nathan said tersely.  If that didn't get Chris's attention, then nothing would.

          He was not expecting the answer he got.

          "Not everything is about J.D.," Chris answered flatly.

          Nathan stood there stupidly, startled into stillness, as he watched his boss disappear beyond the bullpen door and into his office. 

          And still Nathan wasn't sure he had heard exactly right.

         

         

          Judging from the wary look Josiah gave him as the profiler slid sideways into his desk chair, the need to talk about this problem with someone who was sane enough to realize the actual urgency of the matter must still have been written all over Nathan's face.

          Nathan barely waited for Josiah to turn on his computer before leaning over and lowering his voice so the rest of the team, and especially J.D., wouldn't overhear.  "Did you listen to Sandford this morning?"

          He knew Josiah often did.

          An odd expression flashed across Josiah's face as he turned to look at Nathan.  He hesitated before answering.  "Yes," Josiah said, lowering his voice to match Nathan's.  "I heard him."

          Nathan glared back at Josiah expectantly.  "And?" he demanded.  "'I heard him.'  That's all you got to say?"

          "Well, it's not good," Josiah hedged, rolling his chair slightly back and away from Nathan.  "You want coffee?"

          Nathan narrowed his eyes even as he said "Coffee would be good" and "Thanks."

          Nathan watched Josiah's retreating back, still trying to name the expression he had seen on his teammate's face.  Half startled maybe.  The man had barely had time to sit down before Nathan attacked him.  The medic could concede that much.  But there had been something like guilt there, too.  Guilty about what?  Like someone caught in the middle of something he shouldn’t have been doing.  _Like what?_ Nathan wondered.

          He leaned back in his chair and regarded the kitchen door thoughtfully. 

          Buck caught him that way as he was crossing to the kitchenette himself.  He actually walked by, halted, and reversed his step to come back and give Nathan a thoughtful look of his own.

          Buck shot a look over at J.D. working at his desk and lowered his voice.  "What?" Wilmington demanded.

          "Nothing," Nathan responded automatically.

          Buck snorted at that, but his eyes narrowed.  "Uh huh," he said doubtfully.  "You're sittin' there staring into space over nothing."

          "You want a cup of coffee?" Nathan asked, inclining his head slightly toward the doorway Josiah had just gone through. 

          Buck's eyes flicked from J.D. to the kitchenette and right back to Nathan's face before turning his feet toward the kitchen door.  Nathan let Buck go first before calling out to J.D.  "I'm getting coffee, J.D," he said.  "You want me to bring you some?"

          J.D. shook his head without even looking up from whatever had captured his attention on the computer.  His whole face had that look of intense concentration he sometimes got when he was hot on the trail of accomplishing something new.  Sometimes he got so single-minded about it that the whole rest of the world seemed to disappear—along with the need to break for meals, stop for the day, or go home at night.  Nathan shook his head.

          A glance at Chris's office told him that Vin was still in there, and both of their heads were bent over the blueprints and surveillance photos Vin had laid out on Chris's desk.  They would be a while.

          Nathan got to the door of the kitchenette just in time to herd Josiah, who was heading out with two steaming mugs, back inside and away from the door.  Buck was waiting impatiently by the tiny beat-up table that no one used for eating, only for hurried, confidential, secret, and totally unofficial confabs like this one.  They'd better hurry up before J.D. or Chris caught them there and cottoned on to the topic of their discussion.

          "Cyril D'Aprix was on Miles Sandford this morning," Nathan said.  "He was talking about the Lebec funeral and whatever Chris did at the attorney's office yesterday."

          Josiah, still holding two cups of coffee, glanced at the door like he wanted to be somewhere else.  Nathan took one of the cups, shifting none too subtly to put himself between Josiah and the door.

          Buck, hands on hips, looked thoughtfully from Nathan to Josiah and then at the floor.

          "That's not good," Nathan said, wondering why he had to keep pointing this out to men who were fully trained in solving crimes and hunting down criminals. 

          Buck nodded his head, but the look on his face said _No shit._

          He looked back up at Nathan.  "How bad is it?"

          "Sandford has a small, local audience," Josiah profiled smoothly.  "He covers community affairs.  His audience tends to be largely African Americans who," he shot a glance at Nathan, "are involved in social activism."

          Nathan shot the glance right back at Josiah.  Damn right he was engaged in social activism.  This country had a long way to go and people ought to roll up their sleeves and do something about it.  He was not sorry for his social leanings, but he didn't much like it when he ended up in one of Josiah's demographic profilings.

          "Small, local, committed, and vocal," Nathan added, since it appeared that Josiah had skipped a couple of important points.

          "Depends on who's listening," Josiah answered.  He shrugged.  "It could all blow over by lunch."

          Nathan glowered at the profiler.  It wasn't like Josiah to stick his head so stubbornly in the sand when a friend's reputation was at stake.  Two friends, really. 

          "Or it could get picked up in the larger media," Nathan put in. 

          Buck didn't say anything in reply but Nathan could see the wheels turning behind the dark blue of the man's eyes. 

          Josiah's feet seemed to be getting itchier.

          Buck seemed to come to a decision.  "You monitor the newsmedia," he said to Nathan.  "See if the story goes anywhere."

          He was talking to Nathan but from the corner of his eye, he was watching Josiah. 

          "Don't say anything," Buck warned both of them.  "I don't want to call attention to it if nothing happens."

          Nathan nodded.

          Josiah nodded, too, but his eyes kept flicking toward the door. 

          Nathan moved a step to pick up his coffee cup from the table, and Josiah took the opportunity to slide by and out the door into the bullpen.

          Buck watched him go.  Then he lowered his voice another notch and nodded in Josiah's wake.  "Our profiler seem awfully itchy to you?" Buck asked drily.

          And Nathan was glad someone else had noticed.

          Buck looked thoughtful for a moment then he shrugged and lifted his coffee cup toward the office.  "Keep on this," he said succinctly.  And Nathan wondered whether that really included "keeping on" Josiah.

          "Hey," Nathan said to Buck and waited until Buck was looking at him again.  It was only the two of them standing there in the kitchenette, but Nathan lowered his voice anyway.  "Any idea what happened down there at the lawyer's office?"

          He was surprised by Buck's snort.  "Yeah," Buck said aggravatedly.  "Chris walked over to her and gave her his card."

          "What?" Nathan demanded more loudly than he had intended.  He peered hard at Buck as if the answer was on the man's face.  But it wasn't.  Which wasn't surprising because Nathan could barely even formulate the question. 

          "Why would he do that?" Nathan finally demanded. 

          Buck's lips twisted up derisively as a myriad of possible answers floated to his mind.  He went with, "I don't know.  'Cause he's a dumbass?"

          Nathan only shook his head.  "That makes no sense.  Why would he do that?"

          Buck rolled his eyes and took a step toward the door.  "I have no idea what he was thinking," he said tightly.  "But I can sure as hell see how it might look like harassment."

          Nathan grabbed his arm.  "You don't think he really meant to…"  he trailed off.  No, of course not.  Chris would never have intentionally tried to intimidate that woman.  He was sure of it.

          But it was nice to have Buck's "Hell no I don't think he meant to harass her." confirm it for him. 

          He shook off Nathan's arm.  And as he walked away, Nathan heard him growl out.  "I'd sure like to know what he was thinking, though."  The epithet "jackass" carried back to Nathan's ears.

          He waited a bit and thought about it as he watched Buck's back disappear into the bullpen.

          Just what _had_ Chris been thinking?  Wasn't it bad enough he was down there?  Why would he risk approaching her at all when there was already so much at stake?  But then to hand her his card?  Maybe Chris hadn't meant it as intimidation, but surely it was unusually callous. 

          On the other hand, although Nathan didn't have much more to go on than the man's somewhat uncharacteristic obtuseness in the face of what was obviously an enormous problem, he was still absolutely certain that Josiah Sanchez knew something more than he was telling.  That made Nathan all sorts of interested to know what, and Nathan Jackson was a wholehearted believer in being proactive and forearmed. 

          However, Buck was right.  They needed to stay under the radar.  It was far too early to get all excited.  That might raise alarms, which might attract entirely too much attention to the Team and it's current problem.  They'd certainly had more than enough of everybody's attention lately.

          Vin read the atmosphere as soon as he came out of Chris's office, blueprints and files tucked neatly under his arm.  He looked from Buck to J.D., skipped over Ezra's empty chair, scanned Josiah, who was keeping very, very busy, and finally, locked eyes with Nathan.  As perceptive as Ezra, instincts likewise honed by years of experience and a strong instinct for self-preservation, Vin realized right away that Nathan would tell him whatever was going on, but now was not the right time.  He shifted his head slightly in the direction of Chris's office and caught the tiny, nearly imperceptible shake of Nathan's head. 

          Vin let out a long and silent sigh.  He'd been counting the days and the weeks and sometimes the hours and minutes that this whole unfortunate incident had been sitting over them like a cloud and was now threatening to suck his friends farther and farther in, one by one, like a whirpool, or a black hole, or more like the big swirling flush of the giant Toilet of Fate.  He wondered what Josiah would think of that philosophy. 

          Buck caught up with him in the hallway not two hours later, herded him away from the bullpen door and forced him to reverse step and walk with Buck wherever it was that Buck happened to be going.  It was a short briefing that would have been shorter if it weren't interrupted by the frequent Hello-Darlin's, Don't-you-look-beautiful-today's and I-swear-you-get-prettier-every-day's he flung out as they made their way along the administrative section on the twelfth floor plus the four Hey-buddy's, two How's-the-family's and one You-still-owe-me-a-beer, he tossed out to passing agents and one harassed looking guy in the IT section.

          All that to pick up two sheets of paper and tell Vin that, on account of all the nothing that happened yesterday down at the lawyer's office, Chris got himself smeared by a pencil neck social advocate on some little talkradio show this morning and that, according to Nathan's diligent monitoring, the story was being picked up bit by bit by the electronic editions of the local papers. 

          Vin was tempted to ask Buck why he couldn't have just taken the 7.8 seconds to tell him that down on the 11th floor hallway outside their bullpen instead of dragging him along on a pointless hike all over the federal building.  But there were more important questions, like "Does J.D. know?" and "Does Travis know?"

          He settled for "Does Chris know?"

          Buck held the door to the stairwell for Vin and shook his head.  "Nathan tried to talk to him, but he wasn't exactly in a mood to listen."

          He lowered his voice as they spiraled down the cement-walled stairs.  "In case Chris didn't tell you, Travis reamed him out pretty good yesterday after the lawyer complained."

          Vin looked at Buck.  "Chris tell you that?"

          Buck scoffed good-naturedly.  "Nah," he said.  "I got two legs and two ears.  I went up and listened."

          Vin rolled his eyes.

          "Surveillance," Buck offered as his excuse.  "And backup," he added a moment later. 

          _More like nosey,_ Vin considered, but he didn't call him on it.

          "So what are we gonna do?" Vin asked instead.

          Buck shrugged.  "Wait and see," he said.  "Far as I can tell, no complaint was filed officially, so no charge has been made, so technically no answer has to be given."

          "Yet," Vin added.

          "I'm guessing this is all just some kind of distraction," Buck said.

          Vin grimaced.  "Smoke and mirrors," he agreed.  He stopped short at the bottom of the stairs.  "Or rumors and lies."

          Vin turned to face Buck, who had just arrived at the landing.  "Maybe it ain't a diversion," he said.  "Maybe you got it right the first time.  Maybe it is a smear campaign."

          He had Buck's full attention.

          "Remember how the FBI poisoned Ezra's reputation before he left Atlanta.  His superiors systematically made him look worse and worse until people would believe it when they framed him for corruption."

          Buck took a second to think about that.  "But they're smearing Chris," he said slowly, "not J.D."  He leaned back against the wall. 

          "Well, there probably ain't nearly as much dirt to smear J.D. with," Vin offered.

          Buck grimaced at that.  That was sure as hell true.  True for all of them.  "So if they can't make J.D. look bad on his own merits," Buck surmised, "then they try to make him look bad by making all his friends look like criminals."

          "Or idiots," Vin added.

          "Don't remind me," Buck growled.

          Buck eyed him.  "The ATF has cleared J.D. of wrongdoing," he said thoughtfully.  "And whatever they say about the rest of us isn't likely to actually affect the kid's career."

          Vin shrugged.  "They don't have to affect J.D.'s whole career," he pointed out.  "Just the lawsuit."

          "Damn," Buck said grimly.  "They just have to make him look bad enough to a bunch of people who don't understand the situation."

          "Don't forget making it harder to find an unbiased jury," Vin added.

          "Damn," Buck said again, shaking his head at the floor.  He looked back up at Vin.  "Chris is gonna kick himself."

          "Chris says he didn't do anything wrong," Vin reminded Buck.

          "Just 'cause whatever he did wasn't wrong," Buck said irritatedly, "don't mean it wasn't stupid."

          Vin didn't reply.  After all, Buck had a point.  "Wait and see?" he asked instead.  "Is that like sit around doing nothing while our buddies get hung out to dry."

          "No," Buck corrected him.  "It means sit around doing what we're supposed to be doing trying not to do anything stupid."

          "Or anything that could be made out to look like it was stupid," Vin added snidely.

          "Right," Buck replied.  And from the unhappy look on his face, he wasn't exactly joking..

          Vin opened the stairwell door.  "Is there an undercover spot open with Ezra?" he asked.

          "If there is, I'm taking it," Buck said and went through the door ahead of Vin.

          They met Chris in the hallway coming out of the bullpen.

          "Where you goin'?" Buck asked.

          "Meeting with Frank Lawford," Chris answered brusquely.

          "J.D.'s lawyer?" Vin asked.

          Chris's eyes slid toward Vin. "Yes," he said.

          A low whistle escaped Buck.  And Chris shifted his gaze to glower darkly at his second in command.

          "Got your Kevlar undies on?" Buck asked.  "You're gonna need 'em."

          Chris's glower intensified a fraction.  J.D.'s lawyer was waiting to talk to him about what happened at Gillingham's office yesterday and maybe rethink Chris's value as a character witness.  And Nathan had his heels dug in about this talk show.  Who knew what the damage was going to be there?  While he couldn't exactly blame Buck for his attitude, Chris was a little short on the patience to deal with it.   

          If Buck noticed the clench of Chris's jaw, he didn't seem too worried.  "Me and Vin'll hold down the fort until you get back," he continued smoothly, an insolent smile flirting with his mustache. 

          Chris didn't answer him, but he was still glaring when the elevator doors closed.

          Buck turned to see Vin regarding him from under one raised brow. 

          "What?" he asked. 

          "Nothing," Vin answered, shaking his head.  The sharpshooter walked away, muttering something about "friends like these". 

          Buck ignored him.  After all, if Chris could give out shit when Buck got stupid, then he could damn well take it, too.

 

 

          Frank Lawford was torn between being irate and feeling completely flummoxed over this unexpected turn of events.  On first meeting, Chris Larabee had impressed him as a man who, though certainly intense, at least had his head screwed on straight.  Now this allegation that he had tried to intimidate Shana Morton was snowballing through the local press.  Lawford's first instinct was to believe it was a complete fabrication, so he had called Larabee directly, expecting a vehement refutation, hoping the man would call it a flat-out lie.

           Lawford didn't get what he had hoped for.  Instead Larabee had admitted to being at the building and approaching Shana Morton.  He refused point blank to say anything else over the phone, so Frank more or less demanded Larabee make time to come down to his office in person. 

          It struck him in the moment that Chris Larabee was probably not the sort of man who would respond well to demands, but a moment later, Larabee agreed and said he was on his way, which caused Frank to unexpectedly clear the next hour out of his calendar.

          Larabee arrived wearing, Frank suspected, the very same black duster that Cyril D'Aprix had tried to characterize as gangsta.  Well, maybe it would be, Lawford thought, on an actual gangsta. 

          He damped down his irritation, at least long enough to find out just what had happened.

          "Please, sit," Frank said, rising and gesturing to a well-worn leather sofa and chair clustered around a coffee table near the door.

          Larabee's eyes made one complete circuit around the office and back to Frank.  Then he put his hands in the pockets of his duster and chose a seat on the sofa, away from the door.

          Frank sat on the chair rather uncomfortably and tried to dispel the sudden paranoid thought that maybe he should be wary of that door behind him, too.

          "You know about Cyril D'Aprix's guest spot on the Miles Sandford show this morning," Frank began.

          "I do," Larabee answered tersely. 

          "Since this morning, the story has been picked up by the online editions of several local and regional newspapers and news services," Frank said, holding Larabee's steady gaze.

          "I see," Larabee answered without a flicker of emotion.  But the green eyes were wary.

          Frank took off his glasses, cleaned the lenses with a handkerchief he kept just for that purpose, and took a moment to consider how to word what he wanted to say.  Larabee struck him as a straight shooter, so he settled his glasses back on his nose and took a breath.

          "Did you attempt to intimidate Shana Morton?" he asked,

          Larabee did not flinch or look away, and Frank didn't either.

          "I did not," Larabee said, sounding like he was already on the witness stand.

          "But you did approach her?" Frank asked, feeling like he was already examining the witness.

          There was a very thin smile.  "Didn't we have this conversation on the phone?"

          "I need to know what happened at Gillingham's office," Frank said. 

          Larabee's eyes flicked away from his.

          "Look," Frank said.  "When Agent Dunne needed a lawyer, you called me.  I know you want your agent to have the best representation possible."  He tried to catch Larabee's eye.  "Whatever happened between you and Shana Morton is going to affect my case.  I need to know what happened, so I can properly prepare."

          The green eyes flicked back toward him, assessing.

          "I did not attempt to intimidate her," Larabee said clearly, calmly, and firmly.

          Frank looked at him.  "I believe you," he said earnestly.  "But that's the only story people are going to hear unless you tell me what happened."

          Larabee's eyes locked onto his.  "There's no story here."  The voice was soft but deadly. 

          Lawford licked his lips.  He'd obviously hit a nerve.  He backed off and regrouped. 

          Larabee got his feet under him like he was ready to get up and head for the door.

          "Okay," Frank said quickly, placatingly, fingering his way carefully around the subject.  "You don't want to tell me what happened, I guess there's no way I can make you do that."  He let his tone harden a hair.  "Unless I put you on the stand."

          There was a cold, hard silence.

          Frank ignored it.  "But you need to know that whatever you did or didn't do, I now have one tainted character witness.  That's you," Frank pointed out.  "And a jury pool that is slowly being polluted."

          He tried for the stern glower.  "You can see why that doesn't make me happy."

          Larabee gave him a long hard look, and Frank held his feet still, made his face calm, and stood his ground.  He could see how the man might be accused of intimidation.  He was damned intimidating just sitting there on Frank's own sofa.

          "Has Gillingham filed an official complaint?" Larabee asked finally.  "Or made an official charge?"

          "Wouldn’t you be the first to know?" Frank countered.

          "In the top five at least," Chris said.  There was a definite tilt to the lips. 

          "Is there any chance that he will?"  Frank said.

          Larabee shook his head negative.  The green eyes darkened and whatever was left of that enigmatic smile disappeared.  "I doubt it."

          "'I doubt it' isn't very certain," Frank bit out.  He looked hard at the agent.  "Any chance that Ms. Morton will make a complaint herself?" 

          "No," Larabee said.  Then he blew out a breath.  "I approached her," he said.  "I gave her my card.  No words were exchanged."

          Short and to the point. 

          This was what Agent Larabee refused to say on the phone?

          Frank stared at him.  "You gave her your card?" he asked, hoping there might be a little more clarification.

          "Yes," Chris answered.

          Apparently if there was clarifying to be done, Frank was going to have to do it himself.  "Your professional card?"

          "Yes."

          "The one you give to witnesses and ask them to contact you if they can think of anything else that might be helpful?"

          "Yes."

          Frank was familiar with the procedure, although in this case it seemed in spectacularly bad taste.  Maybe it _was_ some form of intimidation.

          "You don't really expect her to call you.  Do you?"  He tried not to sound sarcastic.

          "No," Chris said drily.  "That wasn't the point."

          "The point was…" Frank prompted.

          "That she could," Chris answered, and this time he did get up.

          So much for an hour cleared out of his calendar. 

          Frank rose up in the man's path.  "Why couldn't you tell me this on the phone?"

          He had the sudden sense that Larabee was looking right through him, skin, bones, and all. 

          "This is not for public consumption," he said.  The warning in his voice was clear enough to raise a line of goosebumps on Frank's spine.  "I didn't intimidate her.  And that's all anyone needs to know." 

          "Work with that," Larabee said stonily and moved past Frank, duster swirling around his calves as he walked away. 

          By the time Lawford gathered his next thought, the man was gone. He heard the door to his outer office and the hallway beyond close, and he breathed out.  It was a wonder this man hadn't yet eaten J.D. Dunne alive.  Then again, maybe he wasn't the kind of predator that ate its own young. 

          _Work with that,_ Larabee had said.  Well, it wasn't much to work with, was it?  Still, precious few as they were, there were facts here he could stand on.

          There was no official complaint.  No charges had been filed.  And nothing had been heard from Shana Morton at all.  Just her attorney, who had an interest to fulfill, and a local social activist, who had a definite axe to grind.  It was slim, at best.  But he could work with it.

          For now.

 

 


	10. Chapter 10

          For a man of Josiah's size it was difficult to sneak anywhere, let alone through the single door into his supervisor's office during business hours when his entrance route was covered from any number of angles by the five teammates currently sharing his bullpen.  Sneaking being out of the question, he took the hiding-in-plain-sight route and tucked a manila folder from some case or other under his arm and knocked outright.

          Chris looked up, his expression an uncertain mixture of exasperation and fatigue. 

          "You got a minute?" Josiah asked in what he intended to be a very ordinary and usual tone.

          Both the exasperation and the fatigue intensified fractionally.  Chris pushed a file folder of his own out of his way, snapped it shut, shoved his computer mouse aside all with his right hand at the same time he gestured to a chair opposite his desk with his left hand.  It wasn't exactly "Sure, Josiah, glad to see you.  Always have time to talk to you."  But it was good enough. 

          Josiah pushed the door shut behind him and Chris's face took on a downright suspicious cast.

          By the time the profiler got settled, the green eyes were already drilling a hole through Josiah's skull.  Larabee was short and to the point.  He gave one nod to the file folder and uttered the single syllable, "What?"

          Josiah cleared his throat.  He looked at the file folder almost as if he had forgotten it was there under his arm.  He laid it in his lap.

          "Uh, actually," Sanchez began. 

          Sanchez didn't generally stumble over his words.  His words generally rolled smoothly off the end of his tongue, and when he really got on his high horse got downright pontifical.  Sometimes when he got carried away with some myth or story, the words rose and fell in cadences more like some kind of Tibetan chant than actual English.  Stumbling was not a good sign.

          Josiah awkwardly cleared his throat again and Chris knew this was going to have nothing whatever to do with the case file in his hand or the business of catching bad guys and was therefore going to be another waste of what time he had left in a day he sorely wished to see the backside of.

          "Spill it," Chris growled out.

          Josiah's measuring look did not bode well. 

          "Doubtless, you are aware of the logical fallacy known as argumentum ad nauseam," Josiah began.

          Chris blinked at him, and Josiah actually saw the man's jaw muscles tighten as his eyes strayed toward the folders waiting silently on his desk.  "The point?" 

          "I suppose the trendier word for it these days is 'truthiness'," Josiah clarified. 

          Instead of the dawning light of understanding, the expression in Chris's eyes grew a fraction more impatient.

          Josiah spoke a little faster. 

          "I speak of the fallacy by which something that is repeated often enough and loudly enough by enough people in enough places is often taken as truth, not on the basis of critical consideration and merit, but simply because of the number of times people hear it."

          Chris's eyes narrowed, as if he were trying to read something printed in tiny type on Josiah's forehead.

          Josiah shifted a little in his chair.  "I refer to the situation in the lawyer's office yesterday."

          Chris blinked again.  At last understanding seemed to take hold.  His eyes narrowed a little further.  "What about it?"  he asked testily.

          "The story's been picked up across several of the media outlets."

          "It's a nothing story," Chris grated.  "Nothing happened."

          Josiah frowned at him.  "You may know that and I may know that and everyone who knows you may know that, but there's a world of people out there who don't know you and are only hearing the circumstantial evidence against you."

          Chris was truly glowering now. 

          Josiah held up his hands.  "Hear me out," he said, pushing on.  "You should consider that unless you make a statement in your own defense, no one is ever going to hear your side."

          "There's no side," Chris grated.  "There's no harassment.  There's no story."

          "But you and I and the people in this bullpen are the only people who know that," Josiah said.  "And the worse they can make you look, the worse it will be for J.D."

          "Guilt by association," he summed up when Chris did not immediately reply.

          Chris seemed to think about that for a moment.  Then his eyes narrowed even further as he leaned forward across his desk.  "How exactly is my making the statement that I walked over to her and gave her my damn business card going to help?"

          Josiah took a moment to breathe before asking calmly, gently, kindly,.  "Could it hurt?"

          Chris's face exploded in an expression that was hard to identify.  His eyes flew wide for a moment, revealing far more, Josiah was sure, than Chris would have wanted.  "Hell yes it could hurt," he said.

          Josiah waited patiently, hoping this wasn't going to become one of those "I don't owe you or anyone else an explanation" conversations.

          But maybe Chris was tired of defending his position via the stonewalling tactic.  Maybe he was figuring out it wasn't helping.  Or maybe he just needed to get it off his chest.

          Either way, Josiah was glad his professional counseling training had taught him how to be patient because several heartbeats later, after Josiah had endured an angry glare of roughly the same intensity as a laser scalpel between the eyes, Chris laid both palms on the top of his desk, took a breath and began ticking off the kind of hard logic that told Josiah that a certain amount of thought had gone into the man's decisions. 

          "Once I tell them that all I did was give her my card," Chris said slowly, "then they're going to want to know why I thought she might want to contact me." 

          His voice was flat and logical but only for a moment, gathering speed and intensity as he continued.

          "The only reason she would contact me is because we've met before, which begs the press to begin to speculate when and how and under what circumstances.  I'm sure as hell not going to drag the truth out for that bunch of voyeurs and vultures," Chris spat out.  "I'm not about to open either one of us up to the kind of speculation you and I both know they're going to jump all over.  I'm not putting her or me through that kind of shit."

          Josiah opened his mouth.  Then he closed it.

          "As to J.D.," Chris steamrolled onward, "right now, they've got nothing on him.  If they're stupid enough to try to build a case against J.D. by smearing me with baseless accusations, then they deserve to watch it all fall apart if it gets all the way to court."

          "J.D. did nothing wrong," Chris affirmed vehemently.

          Then he lowered his voice several notches even though his office door was still closed.  Listening closer, Josiah couldn't blame him.

          "You know as well as I do," Chris said, "that I had no business being in that hospital room.  If word gets out, then those lawyers really will have something to talk about.  Conflict of interest, misrepresentation, malfeasance, and trespassing come to mind.  All punishable."

          Chris leaned forward, his eyes all but glittering in the office light.  "So you tell me what good it will do J.D. or any of the rest of us to give them some real ammunition.  How the hell will it help any of us if I get suspended for cause—or worse?"

          It was a grim thought, Josiah conceded.

          Chris leaned abruptly back in his chair.  "So I can come clean about the damn business card and potentially give them something real to smear me with, and by association, J.D. and the rest of you.  Or…" His voice had gone matter of fact again.  "I can let 'em scream about things I didn't do, so they can look like asses later."

          "I'm choosing door number two," he finished, voice tinged with sarcasm.

          Josiah sighed.  What kind of a world is it when an act of human compassion becomes a punishable offense?

          Chris was looking at him, eyes still defiant. 

          "I see your reasons for keeping this from the world at large,"  Josiah concede.  A lot of reasons actually, Josiah considered, seeing again Chris's shell-shocked expression the morning Josiah picked him up from the hospital.  "But you don't think the team deserves to know?"

          Chris looked at him.  "The fewer people who know the better off we'll be," he said.

          Josiah protested.  "These aren't just some people, Chris.  This is your team.  Your brothers.  People who watch your back.  They're concerned."

          It was Chris's turn to sigh. "I appreciate that Josiah.  More than you know." 

          Conciliation was short lived, however. 

          "But you just imagine what happens when I tell Buck how I was at the hospital keeping vigil with Shana Morton while J.D. was going out of his skull with guilt," Chris said with more than a touch of irony.  "And how I more or less invited the woman who's suing J.D. to call me if she needs a sympathetic ear, and you see how well that goes over."

          Josiah supposed he could have argued that it wasn't going over so well now, without the team knowing the truth, or that there was a whole team of trained investigators just outside Chris's door who were going to keep picking at this until they got the truth, or that maybe Buck would take it better than Chris thought.  But Josiah knew a wall when he ran into one.

          So he just nodded.  Then he got up and left the office of the rock and went out the door and back into the hard place.

 

 

          By the time Buck stopped for gas, got cash, and went through the drive-thru at KFC to pick up dinner, J.D. had beat him home and was sitting on the edge of the couch watching Leila Wallace's local roundtable discussion of the startling new event in the Morton case.  Buck bypassed the kitchen and dropped the food, bucket, bags and all, on the coffee table with an extra hard thump just to get the kid's attention.

          J.D. glanced right over the food and on up to Buck.

          "Can you believe this shit?" J.D. asked, left hand jabbing through the air at the TV set.  "Can you believe he did this to me?"

          Buck grimaced. 

          A look at the TV revealed more or less the same set of pundits Buck had been watching last week.  The same shiny black table.  The same honey-blonde host, the usual law professor, but this time Cyril D'Aprix was only present in various audio and video clips.  No doubt that would soon change. 

          The man's irritating voice had been all over Buck's truck radio.  He was evidently not one to let any opportunity to air his causes go unexploited, and Buck suspected D'Aprix was more than vain enough to enjoy the attention this tragedy was bringing him.

          In the present moment, however, J.D. was glaring daggers at him. 

          "He was trying to help," Buck said lamely, knowing damn well it was exactly what he shouldn't have said before the words even left his mouth.

          "You, Chris, and everybody else," J.D. spat out venomously.  "You know this was the worst moment of my life _before_ you guys decided to help."

          Buck opened his mouth.

          J.D. cut him off.  "Don't say anything," he snarled.  "And don't help.  I don't need any more of your god damn help."

          He stalked right out the door leaving Buck staring at the bucket of fried chicken and assorted sides.

          J.D.'s motorcycle roared to life in the parking lot.

          Buck swore to himself and dropped into the spot that J.D. had vacated.  He turned up the volume on the remote and started in on an extra crispy thigh.  It looked like it was going to be another in a string of long, long nights.

          Across town, Josiah, wearing his demolition clothes, was likewise perched on the edge of his sagging plaid couch and watching the same news round table.  The sledgehammer standing on its head beside his knee was long forgotten.  He gripped his phone and debated calling Nathan.

          "It's a serious allegation and a damaging one," offered UC Boulder Criminal Justice Professor Ajay Prahan.  "And if true—"

          "At this point it's simply an allegation," interrupted Leila Wallace.  Josiah liked her new hairdo.  Blonde suited her.

          The professor looked annoyed.  "Yes, and if it's true," he repeated.  "It's a dumb, dumb move on the part of a man who's been in law enforcement as long as Agent Larabee has."

          "I reiterate," put in Robert Frommer, head of the local branch of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, "as Leila said, all this is still, as yet, unsubstantiated allegation."

          "You would say that," offered special guest Miles Sandford drily.  "That is your job."

          "It is my job," Frommer agreed testily.  "And you yourself noted the same point this morning.  D'Aprix was not there.  The information didn't come from the complainant herself and no formal charges have been filed."

          Sandford leaned back in his chair and crossed his hands over the buttons of his sleek grey suit jacket.  "While that is true, it is noteworthy that no response at all has come from the ATF.  Not a word of rebuttal."  He shifted forward in his chair to forestall Frommer's intended interruption.  "Not a denial.  Nothing."

          "Perhaps they don't want to dignify a false allegation with a response," Frommer said icily.

          "Now who's leveling accusations?" Sandford countered.

          "Gentlemen," Leila Wallace interceded, attempting to pose another question, but she was drowned out by Professor Prahan.

          "There is a very interesting point here, I think," he said smoothly, one finger on the table top counting his points as he made them.  "On one side we have an allegation of startling impropriety, reprehensible if it's true.  But the allegation comes not from the victim of said reprehensible act.  In fact, we don't hear it from her lawyer.  We hear it from a third party who was not present when it supposedly occurred."

          Sandford smiled a tight smile.  As a professional interviewer, he probably didn't often get the chance to participate in a good debate, and Josiah judged him to be the kind of man who enjoyed a good debate. 

          "On the other side," Prahan continued, "we have no denial of said unsubstantiated allegation."

          He looked around the table at his colleagues.  "It's difficult to know what to make of that."

          "One point you can make," Frommer said, repositioning his bulk in the rather smallish chair, "is that Gillingham couldn't find enough dirt to wreck Agent Dunne's reputation, so now he's dirtying up all the people around Dunne."

          "Are you implying a tactic of guilt by association rather than guilt by deed?" Leila asked.

          "Looking at the personalities involved here," the Professor said, a note of amusement in his voice," I think it's interesting that Gerald Gillingham, a grandstander if ever there was one in the legal field, is leaving this opportunity to spin events to someone else," 

          Sanford was not as amused.  "Let's not forget," he reminded them sternly, "that there is a real, and viable issue of some vital importance underlying all this titillation.  Three boys were killed.  Aside from legal ramifications, it begs the question of how this happened, how a child who has no visible history of criminal or even questionable activities ends his life in that kind of situation."

          "No one's denying that there's a serious social issue that this tragedy has highlighted for us all," Frommer retorted. 

          He looked like had more to say, but Leila Wallace's smooth voice interceded.  _She really is good_ , Josiah thought admiringly. 

          "Back to the point made by Professor Prahan," Leila redirected.  "Can't the assumption be made that Ms. Morton has leveled the allegation herself, since a person's attorney legally represents and speaks for his or her client?"

          Professor Prahan agreed that it was a fair assumption.

          "But why are there no formal charges?" Frommer asked.  "It's a fair question," he said firmly.  "And it's a punishable misconduct.  If Larabee attempted to intimidate her, then charges should be filed."

          Josiah frowned.  Whose side was Frommer supposed to be on?

          "Speaking to Dr. Prahan's other point," Sandford said.  "Cyril D'Aprix enjoys something of a greater standing among his constituent communities than Gerald Gillingham.  Mr. D'Aprix is therefore a more effective advocate for the issues surrounding this case."

          "And how are people in D'Aprix's constituent community reacting?" Leila asked Miles, cutting off responses from both men on either side of her.

          "Well, there's no doubt that they are angry," Sandford answered.  "And not just in the neighborhoods represented by D'Aprix's Commmunity Action League.  If true, this is really a breathtakingly unconscionable action on the part of a person who is supposed to protect and serve the public."

          "If true," interjected Frommer.

          Sandford nodded.  "If true."

          "We keep coming back to that very question," Leila Wallace said.  "Are we looking at a possible case here where public opinion could potentially outweigh the facts?" she asked.  "I mean, what if it isn't true?  What if it is a complete misunderstanding?  If you look at the first incident that Mr. D'Aprix cited, Agent Larabee does in fact have family members buried in that cemetery near where Kyle Lebec was buried.  There's enough room here for coincidence."

          "Well there was," Sandford said drily, "Until he decided to show up at her lawyer's office."

          "So," Leila said looking at the camera and using her summing up voice.  She was definitely a good hostess.  "Stupid.  Of that there's no doubt.  But the question of intent seems to still be open for debate.  As is the question of the effect public opinion will have on the actual case."

          The camera panned away from them, and Josiah debated the merits of switching to another local news channel or demolishing the rest of the beat-up old bar in the basement.  His phone ended the debate by signaling the arrival of a text message.

          "Unbelievable," it said.  Followed by "I am never coming back."

          _Ezra._ Josiah grinned.  "u good?" he sent back.

          Reading the reply, he could almost hear Ezra's patently sarcastic tone.  "Better here than associating with a gang of fools and idiots."

          _Ouch_ , Josiah thought.  The point was taken.  He also noted Ezra's careful choice of words.  So he was secure.  Paranoid, as ever.  But currently secure.

          "u just watch wallace?" Josiah typed.

          "I watch everything," came the reply. 

          "u better watch ur back." Josiah sent.

          "Always," said the letters on the screen and Josiah grinned, wondering if the offended tone in his head matched the way Ezra had meant it. 

          The phone went dark.  And Josiah thought the conversation was over until the phone signaled one last message. 

          "Someone make sure you don't all get fired while I am still hanging out here in the wind."

          Josiah laughed out loud.  Wherever Ezra was sending from, he must have been feeling really safe.

          Josiah sighed and wished he felt quite the same.

 

 

          A knock on the doorframe to Chris's office brought Chris's head up reluctantly to see who could possibly want something from him at this hour.  He shouldn't have been surprised to see Travis standing awkwardly in the doorway.  He sourly supposed Travis had spent a whole lot of his afternoon working out what to do about Chris's supposed indiscretion and alleged misconduct.  Likewise, he supposed Travis was down here to inform him what had been decided over his head and behind his back, without his input specifically, and without him generally needing to be in the loop at all.

          He looked at the time on his monitor.  Damn he was tired. 

          Travis, for his part, attempted a grin as he said, "I have good news.  There won't be a new press conference."

          Larabee only raised one eyebrow, which let Travis know succinctly that Larabee would have to be drugged and bound before he would be dragged in front of a newscamera again for any reason.  This, of course, was precisely the reason Travis would have advised against the tactic in any case. 

          Happily, Travis didn't have to fight that particular battle.  The brass and PR forestalled any possible suggestion of the matter by pointing out that holding another press conference over another act of stupidity by another ATF agent peripherally connected with Agent Dunne would do nothing but further damage the Bureau's public image. 

          While Travis was glad that he was not going to have to convince the Bureau brass that dragging Chris Larabee out to another press conference would do more harm than good, he did not exactly relish the other task he came to Chris's office to do.  Worse, the more he thought about it, the more he realized he shouldn't have left it this long.

          Travis supposed he was thinking extra loudly this evening because Chris was leaning back in his desk chair and regarding Travis silently.

          At least he was listening, Travis noted with a sigh as he came into the office.  That was an improvement.

          Travis did not sit.  Somehow he felt what he had to do was better done standing.

          Still, first things first.

          "Very reasonably, I think," Travis began, "the higher ups are of the opinion that until an official complaint or a charge is actually filed against you, there is no reason for the Bureau to comment or give the allegations any particular attention beyond making it clear that no formal complaint has been made."

          Typically, Chris remained perfectly silent.  But Travis had learned something in the past few years.  Not expecting a verbal reply, he watched his Senior Agent's face for signs of what the man was thinking.  He knew better than to expect relief at this pronouncement. 

          He gave a long, slow blink and a short nod, then made to swivel his chair back toward his computer screen and whatever task he had been working on when Travis had arrived. 

          Travis had that uneasy feeling of being eleven again and facing a surprise quiz on homework he had neglected to do.

          He took the opportunity to stick his big proverbial foot in the door before Chris shut it completely.  He figured he'd probably get the foolish appendage slammed good and hard, but he could take it.  And if he was exasperated, he reminded himself that he owned a piece of that exasperation, too.

          He cleared his throat.  "There's one more thing," Travis said. 

          Chris's swivel chair paused, and turned reluctantly back toward him.  This time, Larabee's expression was guarded outright.

          Travis inhaled, pulled himself fully upright, ignored his pride and stepped gamely up to the plate.  "I owe you an apology."

          The shock that momentarily crossed Chris's face nearly made Travis smile.  It was good to know that he still had the ability to surprise.  It might keep Larabee on his toes.

          But he was here to do a job, so he refocused his attention, ignored the awkwardness, and carried on.  "Tonight I told the brass that it was an absolutely, bankably, and indisputably certain fact that you would not attempt to intimidate a woman who had just lost her son.  The very idea would be repugnant to you as a federal agent and as a human being."

          He ignored the way Chris and his chair both pushed an inch farther back into the office, as if trying to withdraw into the nonexistent shadows of the fluorescently lit space. 

          He looked his team leader in the eye and said firmly, "I believe I may not have made that quite as clear to you yesterday in my office." 

          Chris didn't say anything.  Just looked uncomfortable enough that Travis wanted to file away for future reference that there was at least one way to knock Chris Larabee off balance.  All he had to do was apologize once in a while.

          He coughed.  "The rest of it," he said sternly, lowering his voice and raising a brow, "about staying away from the whole group of complainants and their lawyers…"

          He looked Chris right in the eye.  "That part I still mean."

          There was a flicker of a smile at that, and Travis allowed himself one small smile for the idiot in the chair in front of him who was evidently a lot more comfortable being in trouble with his superiors than being backed up by one.

          "Now go home," Travis said.  He made it to the door before turning back and glowering at his team leader.  "That's a direct order."

          "Yes, sir," Chris said softly and let a whole half a smile leak out onto his face.

          _Well, that wasn't so bad,_ Travis told himself while waiting for the elevator.  All that was left now was to report back to Evie that he had swallowed his pride and made his apology.  But he was not about to admit to the woman that he felt better with the air clear, or that he had been a worried for a second there.  Heaven knew his wife was right often enough in their marriage.  She didn't need to be right about his work, too. 

 

 

          When the newspaper hit the front door with a thud at precisely 4:27 AM, Mary Travis was already sitting at her kitchen table, perched over a steaming mug of tea and hating herself for her part in circumstances that were not exactly within her control. 

          She took another scalding sip from her very large mug, pulled her robe more snugly around her and went to open the front door.  Normally she enjoyed the feeling of the cool morning air on her bare toes, the sense of accomplishment at gathering in the completed morning's edition of _The Clarion_.  Usually, she took a moment to revel in her pride at bringing to the public the information they needed to go about their days, to remain informed and active citizens, to keep their communities safe and work toward a brighter tomorrow.  Today she just felt cold all over.

          She freed the rolled paper from its plastic bag and took it back into the kitchen.  She sat back down, gripped her mug with white knuckles, smoothed the front page out on the hard oak tabletop, and read the headline blaring out at her from prime, above-the-fold real estate:  ATF Agent Harasses Mother of Slain Teen.

          It looked even worse in black and white than it had mere hours earlier when she had lost the debate to Elliot Koos's single-minded determination to secure a spot as a senior reporter and to Marty Carlson's desire to sell more papers.  Marty's frown, a cross between confusion and pity, was still clearly etched in her mind, at her valiant effort in the name of responsible journalism and not poisoning the Clarion's enviable relationship with local law enforcement, to get some form of the word "Alleged" into the headline.  She went down in flames.  Struck down by the need to grab the public's attention.  And finished off by the need to make space for letters an inch and a half tall. 

          Carlson was downright angry when Mary told Elliot to take her name off the byline.  He thundered out point blank that if she couldn't cut it writing hard news, then maybe he should replace her with someone who would.

          She refused to be intimidated or to give in.  Standing there on shaky knees, she looked Carlson right in the eye and informed him firmly that there would be bigger stories and more legitimate stories, and she would not jeopardize cooperation with local law enforcement agencies on future news just to sell a paper tomorrow morning.

          She turned and left, not knowing whether she would still have a job to come back to in the morning. 

          She read the byline.  Elliot Koos.  He would save that for his portfolio, she was sure.  She would have, too, if she hadn’t known better.

          A strand of hair came undone from its tie, and she twirled a finger into it, pulling more sleep-tousled strands down with it.  She pushed the blond mass back impatiently and read the story, as Elliot chose to tell it.

          It was not the kind of writing her own journalism professors would have condoned, but perhaps attitudes had changed since she had gone to college. 

          She cringed at seeing Chris's name set out in print.  She well knew how he felt about the press and his privacy.  He had good reason. 

          She had seen her own personal tragedy recounted in the media, too.  Tragedy sells papers.  Steven's murder had been no exception.  Even her own newspaper had carried the story, albeit under Saul Nussbaum's editorial oversight, a little more sensitively. 

          Skimming through the print, she counted the _alleged_ 's and _allegedly_ 's popping up here and there in the tiny type.  Mary had the feeling that if they weren't obliged to say so to avoid lawsuit, then Elliot might not have used the term at all. 

          The reporter in her couldn't help but tick off the facts she already knew, data from her own notes.  Shana Morton's lawyer was the source of the complaint, but he had complained to Cyril D'Aprix, who complained on a morning radio show, and whose complaint was now news by virtue of how many people were talking about it. 

          News, she reminded herself exasperatedly.  Not fact.

          A whole paragraph delineated responses from outraged community leaders at the supposed action that may or may not have occurred.  But reaction from important people gives allegations the appearance of facts.

          Then there was the ATF source that simply said until an official complaint or charge was levied there would be no response.

          What else could they say?  You don't respond to something that didn't actually happen. 

          Of course, no one knew what did really happen, she thought idly.

          Well, Chris knew, she thought sourly.  There was no way she was going to ask him.  She pitied any reporter who tried.

          Shana Morton was the only other person who knew.  And she was not speaking to the press at all. 

          Kierra Lebec seemed to have plenty to say, though.

          Mary's hands twisted the wayward curl back up into the hair tie and considered that for a moment. 

          She heard the pad of bare feet before the rumpled pajama-clad boy appeared in the doorway, squinting in the light.

          She gestured toward him with one hand while folding up the paper with the other hand. 

          In the few times that they had met, Billy had taken an enormous shine to Chris Larabee.  The taciturn federal agent had a remarkable ability to draw the boy out as few people could since Steven's death.  In short order, Chris had become the boy's hero, shining brighter than almost anyone but Steven, maybe even brighter than the boy's own grandfather, who was Chris's boss.

          Billy was a good reader for his age, and even though the article itself was well above his ability to read it, Mary had no doubt that her son would pick the words "Christopher Larabee" right out of the narrow printed columns and demand to know what the article was about.  Hiding the article entirely would save her the trouble of finding a way to explain.  Or lie.  She pushed the folded morning edition across the table and out of view.

          "Is it time to get up?" Billy asked, unable to get his eyes open quite wide enough to look at her.  He stumble-walked sleepily toward her across the kitchen floor, rubbing his eyes with a chubby fist. 

          She gathered him into one arm and kissed the warm top of his blond head.

          "No, honey," she said with a smile.  "It's early yet."

          He tried to say something to that, but it was lost in a yawn.  Her smile widened.

          She looked at the clock, struck by how much more time had passed than she had thought.  She would have to get him up for school in less than an hour.

          She put thoughts of the paper, her professional reputation, Chris Larabee and Kierra Lebec aside and looked at the little boy beside her. 

          "Do you want to go back to bed?" she asked, half pulling and half helping him up onto her lap.  Already he was getting too heavy for her to lift. 

          "Or," she continued, pushing his bangs out of his eyes.  She smiled brightly as he blinked at her.  "Should I make us breakfast?"

          That got a big smile.  There was no doubting which one he would choose.

          "Breakfast!" he said loudly, one enthusiastic hand nearly catching her in the chin.  "Can I help?" he asked.

          "Of course you can," Mary answered and wondered if her little boy would outgrow helping in the kitchen one of these days.

          He slid off her lap and went right to the fridge and started pulling out milk and eggs.  When he pushed a chair next to the counter and climbed up to pull down the Bisquick box, Mary laughed out loud.  No surprise there either.

          Billy got his love of pancakes from his father. 

 

 

          Chris Larabee's morning paper lived all of ten minutes before being buried alive in the recycling bin.  If he had missed something of professional importance in its thin pages, he needn't have worried.  He was amply supplied with numerous copies of all of Denver's regional, municipal, and community newspapers by gleeful and mostly anonymous donors throughout the day.  He didn’t even attempt to avoid the sound bites on the local news.  That would have been far too much effort.  It was much harer to ignore the black looks J.D. gave him whenever a new newspaper arrived, or a new clip popped up on some internet news site.

          At the rate the kid was building up steam, it was fortunate J.D. didn't have to wait long to vent his spleen.  At 11:00 Chris left the office for a short mission on another floor. 

          J.D. waited only until the stairwell door closed. 

          "For the record," Dunne growled out loudly and waited for the others to look up.  He pinned an especially baleful glower on Buck.  "If any of the rest of you have any stupid ideas about helping me with this lawsuit," he said,  "don’t.  Just don't."  He glowered at them.  "Because let me tell you.  No kidding?"  One hand flew over Vin's head to point at Chris's office, "you all suck at it."

          Buck tried not to roll his eyes, which made Vin have to work hard not to grin, smile, or snort in amusement.  J.D. was clearly not amused. 

          "Hey," Buck interrupted him.  "He took the heat off of you for a while."  He kept his tone purposely light. 

          It did not have the placating effect Buck had hoped.

          "That's what he said about _you,_ ," J.D. snarled back.  "And look how well that worked out."

          J.D. glowered at Chris's empty office and then one more time at his teammates.  "Someone tell me just what the hell he was thinking," J.D. demanded.  "How is this supposed to help?"

          It wasn't often that J.D. criticized Chris.  Hell, sometimes Buck swore the kid worshipped the ground Chris walked on.  He could have warned the kid about the perils of hero worship.  Silver stars get tarnished.  Even so, he wasn't sure J.D. was being entirely fair.  Plus, defending Chris was practically a knee jerk reaction with Buck.

          He just didn't see how "He just gave the woman his card" was going to make a whole hell of a lot of sense to J.D. when it didn't even make sense to him.

          Buck's eyes skidded over to Josiah, who appeared to be engrossed in something on his desk, but was actually muttering something to himself.  Buck looked at Nathan, who shrugged.

          "You got any thoughts on that Josiah?"  Buck asked pointedly.

          "Not for you," Sanchez answered, lifting his head just long enough to reply, but it was more than long enough for Buck to see disappointment flash through the man's blue eyes.  But he wasn't sure for whom.

 

 

          Mary tapped a finger on her steering wheel in agitated accompaniment to some song half-heard on the radio.  Uncertainty.  She hated uncertainty.  She would prefer to push forward and damn the consequences.  Somewhere in the process of balancing family and motherhood and her career, consequences seemed to have acquired more importance than they used to have when she was a novice reporter, going after a story with everything she had.  It was easier back when there was less to lose.

          But then, Marty Carlson didn't have the kind of faith in her that Saul Nussbaum had had when he had brought her to the Clarion and built her up to her own beat and byline.  Unfortunately, Saul had retired five years ago taking his vision of the Clarion and the role of journalism in a democracy with him, leaving Marty Carlson and his visions of dollar signs in his wake—and Carlson thought Mary didn't have the nerve to meet the demands of her profession. 

          Mary preferred to think Marty didn't quite understand the meanings of nerve or professionalism.  She was every inch the professional.  She could not say with certainty, though, that she still had the drive for the story.  Doubt had leaked in.  Or maybe the passion had leaked out.  Then again, maybe working under Marty was pushing the drive right out of her.

          She grimaced and looked through the windshield from her chosen vantage point, a parking spot a good hundred yards from her intercept point.  She was early, and it gave her time to get the lay of the land.  Steven had often joked that Mary's job and his own job in law enforcement had a lot of strategies in common.  The difference was what they were after. 

          There was a story out there that no one had yet.  It could be hers if she played all the pieces right.  And if she succeeded, either Marty would have to give her the kudos she deserved, or she could take her credentials and go where her professionalism would be better appreciated. 

          Her cell phone rang a short time later.  Elliot.  She answered it somewhat reluctantly.  He should be at the office celebrating his first front-page story.  She hoped he was.  A first front page ought to be celebrated.  She just hoped he wasn't calling to ask her to come join him.

          He sounded a little worried when she answered, which made her smile.  More than likely Carlson had told him she was out working on bringing in new news—not sitting on her laurels in the office.

          "Should I be out there with you?" Elliot asked.

          "No," she scoffed.  "Enjoy your moment," she told him.  "I'll share my information when I'm done here."

          There was a pause—like he doubted her.  She wondered if journalism schools these days actually taught that reporters should always try to screw each other over for the best lead. 

          "We're partners in this, right?" she said reassuringly and wondered if his conscience would even prick him over the potential damage he had done to the paper's relationship with local law enforcement.  Probably not.

          At least she got her own name off the article.  When all this was over, she would still have a relationship with Denver's police and federal agents, a relationship she could use to tell the news responsibly. 

          Elliot could gladly have all the credit in this whole stinking fiasco, she decided.

          At 10:00, a shade went up on the tiny eatery.  Lights went on inside, and the front door was unlocked and opened up by a short, fat man in a stained white apron.  He set to wiping off the outside of the glass front door.  He looked at his watch, looked up and down the tiny strip mall, skimming right over the grocery store parking lot where Mary sat in her car.  He shook his head once and went inside, turning a red sign on the door to say "OPEN".  At 10:10, Kierra Lebec climbed off a city bus along with another woman.  They looked to be talking quietly as they made their way along the sunlit parking lot. 

          Kierra went into the restaurant, and the other woman headed for the grocery store, passing by Mary's car without so much as a glance.

          Mary waited a little while longer before making her way warily across the blacktop.

          Up close, she could read the partially scratched-off lettering painted on the window of the restaurant.  "Ruby Dee's Southern Fried."  There appeared to be a small number of tables crowded inside.  The door swung open and jangled a string of small bells.  Behind a black counter, Kierra Lebec turned, hands still busy tying on her apron, her hair pushed back and under a batik print bandanna.

          At first she looked at Mary in surprise.  Then her eyes narrowed.  Somehow Mary didn't think she was the precise demographic of the average customer here.  She took a breath, put on a smile she hoped spoke of warmth and approachability, and walked right up to the counter.

          The fat man she had seen earlier and a woman who, though taller, matched him exactly in girth, went through the motions of food prep with practiced hands, speaking little, but orbiting each other in the kitchen with admirable ease, given their size and the confines of the little space.

          Kierra Lebec looked uncomfortable.  "We don't start serving until eleven," she said a little breathlessly.

          "Oh," Mary said lightly, leaning on the counter and squinting up at the menu board above Kierra's head.  "Can I order something to pick up at eleven?"

          "Um, sure," Kierra said with a self-conscious shrug.  She pulled a paper copy of the menu from a stack on one end of the counter and pushed it toward Mary.  Her nails were the painted the color of cinnamon.

          "What do you recommend?" Mary asked her, carefully perusing the descriptions on the menu.

          Kierra glanced backward at the kitchen.  They did not seem to notice they had a customer even.  They probably relied on Kierra to do her job.

          "Well," she said hesitantly, "the dipped chicken is popular."  She looked at Mary.  "If you don't mind fattening."  She huffed out a nervous laugh.

          Mary nodded encouragingly, and Kierra tilted her head to read the menu a little more clearly.

          Mary spoke just loudly enough for Kierra's ears alone.  "I'd like to talk to you."

          Brown eyes the color of Russian amber or weak tea flew open wide for a fraction of a second, and Mary thought in that instant that Kierra Lebec looked younger—and prettier—than she had when Mary had walked in.

          The look was quickly replaced by suspicion.

          Kierra lowered her voice, too.  "You some kind of cop?" she asked. 

          "No," Mary said, keeping her tone kind. 

          Kierra's voice got hard, and so did her face.  "Lawyer?  'Cause I got a lawyer.  You look like a lawyer."

          Mary smiled at that.  "No, I'm not a lawyer."  She pulled a pencil and a small notebook from her purse.

          Kierra leaned back.  Her face had hardened again.  "I know what you are," she hissed.  "You a reporter."

          She cast another look into the kitchen, and Mary noticed a look of genuine fear on her face.

          Mary caught her wrist and held onto it as the startled woman tried to yank it away.  She held on and looked Kierra right in the eye.

          "I'm a mother," Mary said.  "A single mother."  Kierra stilled.  "That's what I am."

          Kierra looked at her for a long time, like she couldn't quite believe the words.  "You look like you got nice shoes an' nice clothes.  You probably got a nice place to live and an ex-husband who pays for your nice house and private school.  What do you know about havin' to work to feed your babies?" she challenged.

          This time when Mary reached into her purse, she pulled out her wallet and opened it up to Billy's school photo from last year.

          She could tell Kierra didn't really want to look at it, but she did, and Mary slowly let go of her wrist.

          "This your boy?" Kierra asked after a moment.  Her voice softened and she choked a little.  "He looks like you."

          "No ex-husband to pay the bills," Mary said.

          Kierra looked at her.  "Boyfriend then?"

          Mary smiled.  "No," she said.  She inhaled and then said, "My husband was killed a few years ago."

          She looked down at the photo and ran finger over the little face.  "This is Billy."

          Kierra looked at the photo for a long time.  When she looked up again, a tiny well of tears brimmed in each eye and the veins stood out a little red.

          "Can I ask you a few questions?" Mary asked softly.  "There are a few questions I think people should know the answers to."

          Kierra inhaled, the sound shuddering slightly.  She ran the back of her hand across her eyes.

          "I'll meet you outside," she said finally, reaching behind her to untie her apron. 

          As Mary went out the jingling door she heard Kierra holler that she was going out for a smoke.

          The woman retorted that it wasn't hardly 10:30 yet and that was an awful lot of break for a girl who ain't been workin' fifteen minutes yet.

          "They ain't no customers here," Kierra shot back at her. 

          The door closed behind her and Mary stood in the sunshine and waited, her heart thudding a little, and she reveled in the feel of it for a moment like it was the company of any old friend, this little thrill of chasing a lead, of getting the scoop. 

          The door jangled again, and Kierra joined her on the sidewalk.  She lit her cigarette and blew out the first fragrant breath of smoke. 

          "You want one?" Kierra asked, holding the pack out to Mary.

          "No thank you," Mary said politely.

          Kierra's lips turned up in that hard little smile.  "You don't smoke."  She said it like it was a mortal flaw in Mary's character or perhaps proof of all the things she suspected she knew about a woman like Mary. 

          Mary didn't let it sidetrack her.  She looked up and down the parking lot.

          "Is there someplace we can sit?" she asked.

          Kierra looked at her from the corner of her eye.  "Clio says not to get too comfortable out here."  Her smile hardened a fraction more as she waved her hand to indicate the empty parking spaces before them.  "'Cause I got lots of work to do."

          Mary did huff out a laugh at that.  And Kierra's eyes crinkled prettily at the edges.

          "Well, if the food's good," Mary said.  "I'll make up the time with an order."

          "The food's good," Kierra said bluntly.  She looked Mary up and down.  "If you ain't worried about gettin' fat."

          "Come on," Mary said, jerking her head up the walkway past a closed-up store with a For Rent sign plastered in the window.  "This won't take long, and I can bring my co-workers some lunch on my way back."

          Kierra fell into step beside her and they made their slow way up the walk before the storefronts and facades, Kierra doing most of the talking, and Mary listening more closely to what she said than most people probably had in a long time.

          She made the interview short and left Ruby Dee's with enough fried chicken, biscuits, greens and gravy to offer Elliot for a congratulatory lunch and to serve as dinner for herself and Billy for the next two days.  It smelled heavenly, and her stomach growled as she settled the bags in the passenger side footwell where they weren't likely to spill.  Much as she looked forward to lunch, the smile on her face as she slid behind the wheel was for what she now had in her notes. 

 

 

          Mary stroked a hand through Billy's straight blond hair and thanked her mother-in-law for coming on such short notice.  Dinner was still on the table, and here she was rushing out the door.

          "You be good for your grandma," Mary told the blue-eyed six year old who looked at her as if he wanted her to stay.

          "He's always good for Grandma," Evie Travis answered for him with both indignation and a wink.

          Billy grinned at that and swiped at his cheek where Mary had kissed it.  She absently stroked the pale lipstick mark off with a thumb and gave hurried last minute instructions.

          Evie looked at her with exasperation.

          "I certainly know how to take care of my own grandson," she said firmly.

          And she did.  She knew all the rules and obeyed whichever ones suited her best.  "It's a grandmother's privilege to spoil her grandchild."  That was what she always said.  Along with "A child who is loved can never be spoiled."  Mary had heard both of them often enough.

          Evie shooed Billy back to the dinner table where they had both been enjoying the leftovers from Ruby Dee's Southern Fried when her cell phone rang almost forty minutes ago.  She had told the caller she would be there, called Evie, and explained to Billy that it was work and she had to go. 

          It was a twenty-five minute drive from the home of Steven's parents to the house that Mary and Steven Travis had purchased to begin their life together, and Mary was ready to go as soon as Evie arrived.

          "You be careful," Evie said as soon as Billy was out of earshot.  She sounded so much like Orin that Mary would have smiled if she didn't know Evie was serious.

          "The story's not dangerous," Mary answered just as firmly and just as quietly.

          Evie was not to be gainsayed.  "Just because the story's not dangerous is no reason for you not to be careful."

          "Yes, Mother Travis," Mary sighed, and Evie smiled.  She did like to win an argument.

          It was almost full dark and the parking lot lights were on when Mary pulled into the strip mall.  Kierra was waiting for her outside of Ruby Dee's, smoking a cigarette.  There were few enough cars in the lot to make Mary wonder how Ruby Dee's stayed in business, and she considered a possible angle on a future story about small businesses in the current economy.  She pulled into a parking spot and leaned over so Kierra could see her as she waved her over.

          Kierra tossed her cigarette to the pavement, and opened the passenger door.  She slid inside, bringing with her the smell of damp night air, fried food, and cigarette smoke.  In the sallow glow of the parking lot lights, she looked frazzled, tired.  Almost ill, Mary thought with a pang of sympathy.  Well she knew how grief, the constant absence, could grind a person down if it was allowed to. 

          Kierra looked back at her, head high, eyes fierce under Mary's bald, uninvited inspection, and Mary looked away first.

          Kierra reached back for her seat belt and looked at Mary hard, suspiciously, like maybe she was rethinking her phone call. 

          Mary searched for something innocuous to say, something that would put Kierra more at ease.  Instead Kierra spoke.  "You ain't going to say where I work when you write your article, right?"

          Mary paused in backing up the car and looked at her in surprise. 

          "I don't have to put that in the article," she said slowly.

          Kierra relaxed a little.  "Good."

          "You mind if I ask why?" Mary asked.

          Kierra leaned against the car door and looked at Mary like she was trying to read her face by the dashboard lights.  "No one knows I work there," she said.  "Clio pays me in cash straight from the register for the hours I work."

          "Oh," Mary said and tried to make it sound like it was a completely uninteresting detail that Kierra was working tax-free and still, according to her research, collecting unemployment and other public support.  She let it slide.

          "I won't put it in the article," Mary said finally.  She glanced across the seat and back to the road.  "It can be our secret."

          "Ruby Dee was my mama's aunt," Kierra said.  "Clio don't like it much, but she agreed to it when she took over, and she won't break her promise to Ruby Dee."

          Mary made another noncommittal noise of comprehension.

          "Well," she said finally.  "Isn't that what families do?  Help each other out?"

          "Your family help you out?" she asked, like she doubted Mary would need the help.

          Mary let out an indelicate snort.  "My mother-in-law is babysitting right now."

          Kierra digested that news in silence.

          "You like your mother-in-law?" she asked after a moment.

          "I do," Mary answered honestly.  "She's been very good to me."

          Kierra didn't reply to that.

          Another three street lights went by before Kierra spoke again.  "You like the food?" she asked.

          It took Mary a minute to figure out what she was talking about.  "Yes," she answered belatedly.  "We had it for lunch, and then Billy and I were having the leftovers for dinner when you called."

          Kierra looked at her as if trying to see if she was telling the truth.  "You ever have greens before?" 

          Mary's brow furrowed in thought.  "Once," she said.  "When we were visiting some friends of Steven's in Georgia."

          "Steven," Kierra echoed.  "That your husband?"

          "Yes," Mary replied.  She slowed for a red light and looked over at Kierra.  "They weren't as good as the ones I had today."

          "Ruby Dee's recipes," Kierra confirmed, and Mary detected a note of pride in her voice.

          Mary waited a few more stoplights and some turns before broaching her next topic.  "Tell me about Kyle.  What do you want people to know about him?"

 

 

          A brief pounding on her apartment door brought Shana Morton upright in her hard chair.  She looked suspiciously at the door and told her mother to stay seated and finish her dinner.

          "Who is it?" she called out, hoping to sound as unfriendly and forbidding as possible, distrustful these days of any and all strangers who tried to approach her.

          "It's Kierra," came the familiar voice through the door.

          Shana frowned as she undid the lock, bolt, and chain, wondering what was so important that Kierra had to come all the way over instead of just calling on the phone. 

          The question died on her lips as she saw the blonde woman standing behind Kierra in the hall.

          Kierra was already in the doorway before Shana could even finish asking, "Who is she?"  Almost as if Kierra thought Shana might just close the door on her.

          The woman stepped forward to answer the question herself.  "Mary Travis."  She brushed smoothly between Kierra and Shana, a pale hand thrust forward demanding a handshake.

          Shana looked at the hand but did not take it. 

          "From the Clarion," the woman said.

          Shana's eyes slid over to Kierra's face.  She shook her head in a moment of uncomprehension.  Then her eyes narrowed. 

          "You brought a reporter to my home?" Shana choked out in furious disbelief.

          The Travis woman was quick to answer.  "I simply asked to meet you," she said hurriedly, her hands raised.  "Just hear me out.  If you don't want to talk after that, I'll just go."

          Mary Travis got her first glimpse of the kind of mother Shana Morton must have been.  She had barely finished her one rapid-fire chance to speak her purpose, when Shana turned livid eyes on her.  An upraised hand stopped Mary from speaking further, and there was no mistaking her tone as Shana bit out sharply, "I was not talking to _you_."

          The hand stayed in the air, a command to silence that Mary obeyed, listening hard as Shana Morton lowered her voice to have a vigorous and only partly whispered conference with Kierra.

          "I know," Shana spat out, pinning Kierra against the doorframe with just the force of her glare, "that my lawyer told me not to speak with nobody.  Didn't your lawyer say somethin' like that you?"

          Kierra refused to be cowed.  She gestured toward Mary with one hand and shot back, "But she's gonna tell our side."

          Shana looked at Kierra as if she didn't know her.  "Girl, she ain't gonna tell our side.  She's gonna sell copies of her newspaper.  An' if you believe somethin' other than that, then you ain't got the brains God gave a goose."

          Kierra snorted.  "That sounds like somethin' your mama would say."

          Shana refused to be sidetracked.  "So what if it is?  Don't make it any less true."

          Kierra cast an impatient glance at Mary and then turned to block Mary's view as she bent her head closer to Shana's, and Mary had to carefully edge a step closer to be able to hear.

          "You know what that lawyer is gonna tell that jury about our boys.  Ain't nobody gonna listen after that."  Kierra's voice took on a note of pleading.  "This woman wants to hear our side."

          "Our side?" Shana's voice was no less suspicious than it had been at the outset, but Mary could tell she was at least listening to what Kierra had to say.

          "She wants to know about Ty and Ky."  Kierra's voice cracked a little as she added, "who they were."  She faltered.  "What they were like."

          Shana started to shake her head.

          Kierra grabbed her by the hands.  "People should know."

          "People are gonna think what they want, no matter what we say," Shana answered, but her tone was losing its heat.

          "Maybe so," Kierra retorted, "but at least we got a say."

          Shana shook her head again.  She sent an irritated glance back over her shoulder toward Mary, who kept her eyes fixed on the floor, as if she had not been listening at all.

          "You trust this woman?"  Shana asked doubtfully.  "You think she's gonna print what you tell her about Ky?"

          Uncertainty flitted across Kierra's face and Mary fought hard against the urge to jump in and bolster the woman's resolve.  She stayed silent and forced herself to keep her eyes on the floor.

          She was rewarded.  From the corner of her eye, she saw Kierra nod her head.  "I do," she said and, although her voice didn't have much certainty, at least it was a start.

          Shana looked over at Mary directly, and Mary raised her head to look Shana Morton in the eye.  The look she got in return was contemptuous.  Shana turned her back outright, dismissing Mary's presence in the hall, and giving her full-on attention to Kierra.  She pulled her hands out of Kierra's grasp and gripped Kierra's shoulders hard.  For a moment Mary thought Shana was going to shake her.

          But she didn't.  Instead she spoke and her voice was low and hard.  "If you think you can trust this woman, who knows nothing about our lives, and nothing about our boys, and nothing about living in our world, to tell the world right about your boy, then you go ahead.  You go ahead and tell her about Ky.  You tell her how funny he was, an' how he made people laugh.  You tell her about his big fat cheeks.  An' the way he jumped off monkey bars and swings.  An' you tell her about Ty,"

          She stumbled over the words and Mary thought her voice would break.  But it didn't.  With hardly a misstep she continued on, telling Kierra, "You tell about the Two Musketeers, and the plans they made, and how you couldn't hardly see one of them without seeing the other one."

          Kierra nodded, and Shana's hands slid up to frame the sides of Kierra's face.  "And then you tell her about Radim and how Ky changed."

          Kierra tried to pull away but Shana's hands held her fast.  "And you tell everybody that Ty wouldn't never have been in that store 'cept Ky brought him there.  You tell them that."

          Kierra jerked her head out of Shana's hands.  For a moment, Mary thought Kierra might slap her but she only shook her head.  Mary looked away when she saw the tears.

          Shana wasn't done.  Her voice held firm as she continued.  "Because that's what I would say.  An' you know the truth as well as I do."

          Then Shana looked at Mary.  "You're wasting your time here," she said coldly.  "I won't trade on my child's memory to help you sell your paper."

          She made to close the door, but paused just long enough to grab a surprised Kierra's wrist and yank her inside the apartment before closing the door in Mary's face.

          It took Mary a second to regroup.  She was a reporter, after all.  She was fairly used to stinging words directed her way.

          "I do know something of your world," she called, stepping up to the closed door.  "My husband was murdered.  I know about raising a son on my own."

          She waited, almost holding her breath and was rewarded with the sound of footsteps from the other side of the door.

          This time, it swung open only until the chain pulled taut.  The glare that came back singed her cheeks red.  "No ma'am," Shana said coldly, her words no less forceful for their lack in volume.  "You don't."

          Mary flushed harder.  She had been told that before. 

          She wedged her foot in the door, and thanked good fortune that her shoes were good strong ones. 

          "Agent Larabee said that to me once," Mary said, taking a chance, on a whim.

          She was rewarded with a surprised recoil of Shana's head.

          "He told me I didn't understand his loss or his pain," Mary said, feeling her face grow even hotter.

          "Maybe you don't," Shana said.  The words came out reluctantly, like Shana didn't really want to speak them, or more likely, Mary reasoned, didn't want to speak them to her.

          "Do you know Agent Larabee?" Mary asked, foot still wedged firmly in the door.

          "I got nothing to say about that," Shana said suddenly, as if realizing her mistake.  She tried to force the door closed.

          Mary curled her toes up in her shoe and wedged the edges of the hard soles more firmly between the door and the frame.

          "Did he threaten you at your lawyer's office," Mary fired off, gaining speed as she got her balance, back in the reporter's saddle.

          "I got nothing…" Shana tried to repeat.

          "You saw the paper?" Mary asked.

          Shana halted in mid word.  "I saw _your_ paper," she said acidly. 

          "So you know that he's been accused of harassing and intimidating you," Mary replied.

          " _You_ accused him of that," Shana answered.  " _I_ didn't accuse him of that."

          "Your lawyer and Cyril D'Aprix accused him of that," Mary shot back.  "But you didn't?"

          She wished she could reach into her bag for her notebook and pen, but keeping her foot wedged in the door and ignoring the spreading numbness in her toes was taking up too much of her concentration.  She was afraid if her focus wavered, the door would shut and she'd lose her only shot to ask.

          "Why haven't you filed charges?" Mary asked.

          Shana stared at her.  Off guard now and off balance and Mary knew she had the upper hand.

          "Surely your lawyer has told you, the sooner you file charges, the sooner an investigation can begin and disciplinary action can be taken."

          "I'm not filing charges," Shana said through her teeth, pushing hard against the door and Mary's foot now.

          Mary held on.  "You're not afraid of him are you?  Cyril D'Aprix has been quick to point out in the media that—"

          She was interrupted by a flat cold "Cyril D'Aprix is full of shit—an' he don't know what he's talking about."

          Jackpot!

          "So the story isn't true?" Mary asked, putting a note of hesitation in her voice.  "Agent Larabee didn't try to intimidate you?"

          Shana opened her mouth, closed it, gave the door another half-hearted shove against Mary's now bruised foot, then shot Mary a look of utter contempt before saying.  "No, Agent Larabee didn't try to intimidate me.  But ain't no one gonna believe that either."

          _We'll see about that,_ Mary thought.  She did not let her satisfaction show on her face.

          "You might not believe me, Ms. Morton," Mary said earnestly.  "But I'm a reporter because I believe in the truth.  And I believe people should read the truth.  If you change your mind about telling me about your son, I'm ready to listen, and I will print out a story that shows him as you knew him.  You have my promise on that."

          Shana did not look convinced, but she took the card Mary stuck through the opening in the door, although not without a derisive grunt.

          "We're done here," Shana said shortly.  "Get your foot out my door."

          "Thank you for your time," Mary said cordially and pulled her foot back.

          She had to limp down the apartment stairs, but the pain hardly mattered.  She spared one sympathetic thought for Elliot, whose story was about to be turned upside down, and then let out a completely undignified and unladylike whoop of joy for the scoop she had just landed and where she fully expected Marty Carlson could stick his opinion of Mary's reporting skills. 

 

 

          At 11:38 PM that same evening, Ephraim St. Leger strolled into his neighborhood Starbucks and ordered a Skinny Cinnamon Dolce Latte, sat down at a table by the door and used his cell phone to place an order for a House Special Lo Mein and a vegetable egg roll to be delivered to the coffee house.  The skinny college kid wiping up the counter studiously ignored him, seeming to be more occupied in keeping his distance from the man behind him whose graphic black and white tattoo sleeves winding up both arms seemed almost to writhe as he whipped up the froth on the latte. 

          The customer didn't have to wait long for the coffee, but there was a slight delay in the other delivery.

          A charcoal grey sedan passed slowly by the store window.  Ephraim took another long, satisfied sip of his very decent latte. 

          A long-haired man in torn jeans and a faded chambray shirt elbowed in through the door.  He held up a white paper bag and looked warily around the restaurant.  "Someone here ask for delivery?" he asked.

          Ephraim got up lazily out of his café chair.  "That would be me," he said, his voice betraying a trace of irritation

          They stepped outside.

          "That'll be $12.50."  The delivery man grinned obligingly and held out his hand.

          Ephraim's eyes narrowed.  "$12.50 for one order of House Special Lo Mein and a veggie egg roll?" he asked.

          The delivery man looked in the bag.  "And a Kung Pao Chicken," he added.

          "You'd better call your manager," Ephraim said drily.  "I didn't order Kung Pao Chicken."

          "Oh," said the delivery guy.  "I guess I'd better call."  He seemed to think about it for a second.  "On second thought, maybe you'd better tell him.  My boss ain't exactly been in the best of moods this week." 

          Ephraim gave a huff of irritation.  But he pulled a folded ten dollar bill out of his pocket and handed it to the delivery man.  Bag tucked under his arm, he raised his cup minutely in salute through the door to the tattooed man who made his latte.  There was only the briefest of head nods in return.  Then he went out and around a corner toward his apartment.

          "Hey!  You stiffed me $2.50," the delivery guy protested to St. Leger's disappearing back.

          There was no response.

          Grinning, the long-haired man slid into the back seat and pulled the door safely closed. 

          "You got it?" the driver asked.

          Vin Tanner unfolded the note from the center of the ten dollar bill.  "Yup," he said with a grin.  As Nathan pulled away from the curb, he removed a tinfoil tray with a plastic cover from another white bag.

          "Hey!" Nathan objected as the spicy scent of Kung Pao Chicken, extra hot, filled the car.  "You can't eat in Raine's car."

          Vin licked his thumb, but he put the cover reluctantly back on the tray.

          "I can't believe we actually had to stop for Chinese," Nathan groused.  Vin shrugged.  "Had to make it look real," he said.  "You know.  Just in case."

          "Plus, I was hungry," he added, digging for fortune cookies.

          Blocks ticked by.  Nathan counted them almost unconsciously until at last he leaned his head back against the leather seat and let himself feel how tired he really was.

          Vin was on the phone.  "Yeah, we got it," he was saying. 

          Talking to Chris.

          He unfolded the note inside the ten dollar bill.  "Looks like option 1."

          Nathan's ears perked up.  It would be nice if Plan A worked out for once.

          "Nope, nothing to report," Vin continued cheerfully.  "Smooth sailing."

          There was a pause. 

          "Yep," Vin said after a moment.  "He looked good.  Pissed off.  So, 'bout like any other day."

          Nathan cracked a smile at that himself.

          Vin looked across the seat at Nathan. "Chris wants to know how soon we can get back to the bullpen."

          "Avoiding traffic," Nathan considered.  "'Bout thirty minutes."

          Vin relayed the information to Chris and hung up.

          Nathan noticed Vin was smiling.  Looking out the window, miles away, and wearing that smile he always wore when they got to the part of an op when they could actually count down the time until the action starting. 

          Fools and adrenaline junkies, Nathan thought, not for the first time.  Calculating the probability of someone he cared about getting hurt never brought a smile to his lips.  But then he doubted those were the people Vin was thinking about getting hurt. 


	11. Chapter 11

 

          In a moment of compassion, Mary rousted Elliot Koos from wherever he was triumphantly celebrating the success that was likely to cripple his career before it even began, to offer him a chance to work on a story that might reestablish a trustworthy reputation with local law enforcement.  After all, it was hard to get information fast or first if the police and the federal agencies don't trust you or like you.  She had tried to explain that to him before that god-awful article about Chris went to press.  Maybe he would listen this time.

          He wasn't happy for the interruption—which made her smile and then laugh as his attitude totally changed once he got a hint of the scoop she had uncovered.  She told him to call Marty and meet her at the paper.  It was probably petty of her.  But if Elliot was going to be Marty's pet reporter of the week, then Elliot could make the call.  And she was small enough to hope Marty would be good and irritated to be interrupted on his personal time.

          Marty was positively delighted at the mere idea that the Clarion and the Clarion alone got a quote from Shana Morton, and a quote no less that contradicted the headlines of the day at all the other papers and thus making the competing news outlets look like a bunch of slack-jawed idiots sitting dumbly around on their thumbs while the Clarion was out finding and proclaiming the truth.  Never mind that Marty had been so proud of proclaiming the same news as all the other slack-jawed idiots just that very morning. 

          Mary graciously let that point slide without comment.  Just as she let Elliot's obvious delight slide without pointing out to him that she was probably saving his career or that he was about to look stupid by contradicting himself.  Or that she was doing him a favor by sharing her work with him.

          She didn't say any of that, all the more so because the bigger problem turned out to be lack of background or corroborating information or even a general framework in which to write a news story hard-hitting enough for the front page.  She had a great headline—and that was about it.  She needed some substance for the article.

          No other news source had the information Mary had.  No one was in that hallway to hear Shana Morton's words, and it was a safe bet she would continue to distrust the press unless she had a good reason to change her mind.  Therefore the way ahead seemed startlingly clear.

          "Marty," Mary said, raising her voice just enough to be heard over the men's conversation.  Elliot excited and spouting strings of ideas and Marty wearing that intense look he got when something really interested him, passing instant judgement on each of Elliot's suggestions.

          Neither man appeared to hear her, as Elliot was rather animatedly calling out and scribbling down filler facts they could use to pad out the article just to have enough words to justify getting the information out front and center before the competition.  Marty was nodding in vigorous support of the idea that they needed to be first.  First was very important.

          She sighed. 

          "There's no hurry," she said calmly and a little overly loudly.

          That got Marty's attention.  His head came up and his whole body turned to face her.

          Elliot's words trickled a bit longer and then stopped.

          They stared at her in astonishment, and she could clearly read in Marty's pitying expression that he believed she had lost her reporter's edge completely.

          "There's no hurry," she said more calmly.  "No one else was there to hear Mrs. Morton's words.  She's not likely to talk to any member of the press willingly.  She has no vested interest in repeating what she said to me, nor would her lawyer advise her to make it public—not when public opinion is running his way."

          "What are you saying?" Elliot asked.

          And she wondered that Marty thought she was the one who didn't have a reporter's keen instincts.

          "I'm saying a little more time will buy us a story that is worthy of this headline.  A story with substance.  A solid scoop."  She looked Marty right in the eye.  "No one else has this story.  No one but us.  We're the only ones with a foot in the door," she said and tried not to wince as the metaphor made her foot throb in reminder of how she got the scoop in the first place.  "No one else is going to get this story without talking to Shana Morton."

          "And Shana Morton isn't talking to reporters," Marty said, a grin starting to spread across his smug face.

          Mary nodded her agreement.  Then she took a breath.  "But if you give me a little time to work on this, I think I can get her to talk to me."

          Marty's whole face lit up for bright second.  Then his eyes narrowed in uncertaintly.  Over Carlson's shoulder Elliot was looking at her in disbelief.  He shook his head slowly. 

          Warning her off, she realized.  Maybe he thought she was bluffing.

          "How will you do that?" Marty asked, slowly and carefully.

          "By gaining her trust," Mary said simply. 

          Elliot took another step closer.

          "You think you can get her to trust you enough to talk to you?" Carlson clarified.  He looked at her thoughtfully. 

          Mary didn’t answer.  She watched the wheels turning in his head, contemplating thoughts about circulation and time delays and news awards and whatever else Marty thought was important, as she silently counted the beats until he asked the question she was waiting for. 

          Elliot couldn't wait that long.  He plowed right in and demanded to know,  "How are you going to do that?"

          Mary smiled.  "Well," she began with deliberate casualness and pulled a paper from her bag, "I have a related article we can run tomorrow." She handed it to Marty.

          Elliot moved to peer right over his shoulder.  Marty shrugged him off irritatedly and shifted away from him.  Mary bit the inside of her cheek to keep from grinning.  Poor Elliot would learn the hard way how fickle Marty Carlson was in his choice of favorites.

          To Marty she said, "This is more of a human interest story, of course."

          He nodded his head but kept reading.

          "I've offered Shana Morton a chance to tell about Tyson in the same way," she said.

          Elliot was frowning at her.

          "You think she'll go for it?" Carlson asked, still reading the last paragraph.

          "I think there's a good chance she will if we run this article about Kyle Lebec," Mary answered.

          "And somewhere in that interview, you'll get an on-record quote about how that ATF agent didn't actually intimidate her and that her lawyer is making it all up? Marty asked hopefully.

          "Like she's going to come out and say that," Elliot scoffed.

          Marty threw a glance at him, wearing the same irritated kind of expression Mary had seen Orin make in suddenly changing course to avoid an unexpected pile of dog droppings on a park path.

          "She might," Marty said testily.  He rolled his eyes over to Mary.  "You'll get her to, right?"

          Mary did smile then.  "She's already said Agent Larabee didn't intimidate her.  I'm sure I can get her to say more about how the story came about in the course of an interview."

          "You have two days," Marty said bluntly.  "Come back with something," he glanced distastefully in Elliot's direction.  "Besides filler."

          He handed the article about Kyle Lebec back to Mary.  "It's a good article," he admitted gruffly. 

          He picked up the phone and dialed.  "We'll run it under the fold at the bottom of the front page," he said. 

          She faintly heard a voice answer the phone on the other end.

          Carlson looked at both of them.  "What are you still doing here?" he demanded.  "Get my story. Now go."

          Elliot scooted out of the office.  And Mary grinned as she left at a more measured pace. 

          She was certain that keeping her promise to Kierra Lebec was going to be the first step in getting access to Shana Morton that didn't have to be gained at the expense of another good pair of shoes—or the feet inside them.

          Elliot was waiting in her cubicle.

          "I'll get this article put into the print run," she said.  "You get started on some more solid background about what happened between Agent Larabee and Shana Morton at the lawyer's office."

          Elliot didn't move.

          "We only have two days, Elliot," she pointed out.

          He looked at her mournfully.  "It's a great scoop, Mary," he said.  "But if my name's on it, it'll make me look like an idiot."

          She looked at him kindly.  "No one's going to notice that you've contradicted yourself.  It's about the news, Elliot.  It isn't about you."

          She didn't add that it wasn't going to be the new article that made him look like an idiot.  It wasn't even her place to advise him that he ought to be more careful in how he writes in the future.  She wasn't going to remind him of the negative effects of his other big front page declaration.

          Then she changed her mind.

          He deserved to know that much.

          "The police will notice, though," she said.  "And the ATF and the other federal agencies will probably notice too."

          He looked dismayed.

          "You need this new article to balance the last one.  You need to look like someone they can trust," she said.  "You need to fix your reputation."

          Recognition flickered in his eyes as he thought about that for a moment and a faint flush climbed his neck.

          "I guess I should thank you then," he said uncomfortably.  "You could have just scooped me."

          "Don't thank me," Mary said, more irritation leaking into her voice than she had quite intended.  "Just get to work."

          Elliot grinned.  "Yes, boss."

          After he left, she grinned too.  She kind of liked the sound of that. 

 

 

          Team Seven worked another several hours putting the finishing touches on the drop site, checking positions, lines of sight, and perimeters. 

          Ezra was transmitting now. 

          Colón had checked out the site three times in the last two days before making up his mind.  It was up to Ezra to keep Colón from changing his mind or paying another on-site visit. 

          They had contrived contacts for Ephraim St. Leger in the kinds of clubs that Omar Colón liked to play in.  From what Buck was recording, Colón sure liked to celebrate.  Tonight it was the beginning of the brand new and prosperous business partnership that St. Leger had hooked him up with.  Buck kept the audio playing in the background, monitoring it with one ear while he and J.D. checked their teammates in from their positions, perimeters, and pass-throughs, both on audio and video.

          It was well past dinner when Chris double-checked the double-checking and declared the site as ready as it was ever going to be.

          The bust was set to go down sometime in the predawn hours when there would be few civilians on the streets in this district and any traffic would be light.  They had recruited the DPD to help subtly cordon off the area once the rats were approaching the bait.

          As a result, they had elected not to move the van tonight.  A judicious application of paint and a change of tires had made the van look derelict enough that it wouldn't arouse suspicions.  But there was no way they were leaving the equipment alone either.  Besides, at this point it was wise to monitor Ezra's transmissions. 

          Buck didn't mind spending the night in the van.  He had a remarkable ability to sleep just about anywhere: crammed into an airplane seat in economy class, curled up in a car on stakeout, in the mud under a South American drizzle, on a tarred and slanted Baltic rooftop, slumped over a filthy cantina table, to name a few.  A bench seat in the team van wasn't even going to present a challenge.  It was an ability Chris had often had occasion to envy. 

          Chris had to turn a away to hide his smile when J.D. announced he was staying, too.  He couldn't bring himself to leave his equipment, after all. 

          "So much for not wanting to stay in the van," Chris muttered to Buck as they looked over the blueprints one more time by flashlight.

          "Yeah," Buck chuckled.  He looked back over his shoulder.  "Kids.  You tell 'em what to do, and they don't wanna do it.  You tell 'em they can't do it, and they wanna do it."

          Chris shook his head.  There was entirely too much he could say about that subject, but he let it pass without further comment.  Instead, he snapped off the flashlight and handed Buck the schematics.

          "Call if anything looks or sounds suspicious," Chris said.  Buck, like everyone else on the team, already knew that.  But Chris always said it.  He needed to say it.  And Buck was kind enough not to call him on it. 

          "Will do," Buck said, climbing up into the van. 

          He was playing rock, paper, scissors with J.D. over who would take first watch and who would go get dinner when Chris walked away. 

          Chris sent the rest of the team home and went back to the federal building.  The sofa in his office was closer to the drop site if something happened tonight.  And it wasn't like he was going to get much sleep anyway. 

 

 

          It was chilly in the dark small hours when the team had to drag themselves out of bed.  They converged on the drop site on foot, not wanting the sudden appearance of cars in an empty business district to arouse suspicion.  In the dark, they made their way to their assigned locations and hunkered down to wait.  J.D. ran audio and video tests—again—and Chris let him because there was no such thing as too prepared.

          At about 3:30, Colón's long, black sedan pulled up, followed by a second car.  A man they identified by height alone as Virgil Salinas unfolded himself from the passenger side of the second car.  He fumbled in the dark with the heavy padlock on the rolling gate, and then slid it aside to let both cars in.  He left it open behind him.

          The first car made a complete circle of the abandoned garage that sat off-center in the fenced lot.  The facility had been a taxi company, a body shop, and a car service at various points in its history.  The eyes and ears of the team, J.D. broadcast quietly to his teammates the numbers on the clock as the car circled.  Seeing nothing unusual, the car parked, the second car snugging in beside it. 

          Four men, including Salinas and Ephraim St. Leger, emerged from the parked cars and headed for the double-wide, drive-in garage bay door.  Salinas went around to the side door and found a light switch somewhere.  On his monitors, J.D. watched the large man make a sweep of the inside of the facility.  Several minutes later, he lifted the enormous bay door to let his associates enter, too.

          So far, so good, J.D. thought.  Ezra was with them.  They seemed to be in a good mood, having only just left their celebrations to come do business. 

          Salinas and Emilio Salazar, a petty crook related to Salinas by some accident of second marriages, dragged three large, heavy, military-style footlockers from the first car, while Colón and St. Leger stood by and watched.  J.D. could hear their conversation perfectly via Ezra's tiny mic.

          J.D. gave Nathan and Chris the all-clear.  J.D. could see Nathan on Monitor A, a dark shadow taking position just outside the side door.  Chris had to come down from his hiding place on the roof.  J.D. could see him now on Monitor C.  He slipped through the back door into the dark back hallway between the small office and a large storage closet.  Then Chris disappeared entirely into the shadows. 

          A few minutes later, Buck told them all to look sharp.  A dark blue SUV rolled up, pulled through the gate, executed a turn, and backed up to the garage bay.  Two men got out.  One opened the vehicle's back door.  The other went straight to Colón and shook hands.  Robert Solomon, J.D. identified him easily. 

          Solomon had been on Team Eight's investigation list for several months now.  Tonight, Team Seven was going to help Team Eight blow their case right open.  They would be waiting in the wings but, assuming all went according to plan, probably wouldn't have much to do until some time closer to reasonable business hours.  Lucky bastards.

          Salinas, now standing at Colón's left, kept his hands in front of him, but cast a long and hairy eyeball over the buyer.  Evidently, he wasn't nearly as certain of the man as St. Leger and Colón.  But he didn't say anything.

          Salazar stood protectively between the foot lockers full of merchandise and the truck, likewise giving Solomon's associate a long, baleful stare.  J.D. wondered if maybe it was some weird family trait—or just something that bad guys did. 

          On the monitor, J.D. watched Ezra shake hands with Solomon, too.  He was saying something about enjoying his own portion of what promised to be a profitable future. 

          Solomon rubbed his hands together.  "Let's not delay our profitable future any further, then." 

          He looked back at his goon, who reluctantly left off his evil-eyeball match with Salazar and pulled a green duffel bag out of the car.  Salazar stiffened, and Salinas altered his stance just slightly, just in case.  But the goon opened the bag and pulled out a couple of banded stacks of cash.  He handed them to Solomon, who handed them to Colón, who made a show of fanning them with his thumb and then running them under his nose and inhaling deeply. 

          No wonder Colón had taken such a shine to Ezra, J.D. thought.

          J.D. scanned his monitors, A, B, C, D, and then in reverse.  Josiah and Buck were off screen.  But he knew they were in position.  It would be their job to close the gate and cut off escape once the big SUV was safely away. 

          "Show him, Virgil," Colón said. 

          The six men in the bay all moved closer as Salinas opened up one of the footlockers.  Solomon reached in and pulled out a neat, rectangular wrapped bar of C4.  J.D. sucked in a breath.  He didn't think he'd ever seen that much C4 in one place in his whole life.  He didn't know whether it thrilled him or gave him the shivers.

          Solomon caressed it almost lovingly. 

          St. Leger moved closer.  He whistled low.

          Colón wore a deeply self-satisfied smile.

          St. Leger looked proud of himself, too.

          He probably was.  Even J.D., who knew what he was watching for, didn't see him stick the tiny GPS into the crate beside him.  But he knew it had gone on-line.  He could see its signal on the handheld device on the console beside him.

          "GPS active," J.D. reported quietly into his mic.

          That would make Team Eight happy.  Talk about gift-wrapping their case for them.

          "A long and profitable future, indeed," Solomon was saying.  He put the block back and gestured to the goon to hand over the money. 

          There was a lot of polite inspection of merchandise and counting of money, while henchmen and goons flexed muscles in each other's direction, in a vaguely threatening show of mutual dislike. 

          Then Colón and Solomon shook hands again. 

          The buyers got back in their car. 

          J.D. knew everyone on the team waited tensely as the car started.  It pulled slowly toward the gate.  Not that C4 was particulary sensitive to being bumped around, but J.D. supposed when a person has that much of anything that blows up sitting in the back of his car, he probably just can't help driving with extra caution.

          J.D.'s cell phone alerted him.  He took the call.  DPD reporting they had raided Ephraim St. Leger's apartment and confiscated his laptop.

          That meant Ezra's evidence was saved, stored, and now delivered. 

          J.D. reported in to Chris.

          Now all they had to do was move in.  It was six against four.  And one of the four was really one of their own.  They would have to arrest Ezra with the others, of course, but at least they didn't have to worry about whether he was going to try to kill them.  It was the kind of odds Chris preferred.  J.D., too.  And no matter what some of them liked to brag, J.D. knew the rest of them liked it that way, too.

          The SUV slowed at the gate, front tires bumping gently over the small speed bump. 

          Salinas fished a cell phone out of his pocket and held it up to his ear. 

          J.D. leaned forward in his seat.  He dialed up the audio, trying to catch any part of the conversation.

          The SUV's back tires were still rolling over the speed bump.  Josiah and Buck waited in position off camera.

          Then Salinas was feeling around for his gun, pulling it and looking everywhere at once.  He finally settled on St. Leger. 

          "The cops just raided your apartment," he spat out.

          Ezra's mouth fell open in what was undeniable surprise followed by absolute outrage.  Which were both probably genuine, because J.D.'s own heart stopped, too. 

          "They took cash and a laptop," Salinas snarled.

          J.D. had never, ever heard Ezra swear the way he did, at least not in plain old English.

          Salazar ran for the bay door as the SUV started down the road. 

          "Get them later," St. Leger snarled.  "Let's get out of here."

          They moved as one toward the bay doors.

          Buck and Josiah barely waited for the SUV to get rolling down the road before the rolled the gate swiftly shut. 

          Then the shooting started in earnest. 

          Someone on Team Seven, maybe Vin, swore vehemently.

          "Go!"  J.D. shouted into his mic.  Repeating it needlessly. 

          Nathan burst through the side door, shouting out the required, "ATF!  Put down your weapons and get on the floor."

          Vin started popping off shots into the bay from his sniper's nest across the street.  Trying to give Buck and Josiah some cover.

          J.D. wished he wasn't stuck almost a block away out the back door.

          Especially when he realized that Chris's charge up the back hallway was going to be a step or two slower than Nathan's at the side door. 

          And it didn't take the bad guys but a second to realize there was one escape route seemingly still open.

          They converged toward the narrow back hallway, guns out, three of them on a direct line toward Chris, Colón in the lead. 

          Buck ran for the bay doors, shouting as he went.

          Salinas, covering his boss's retreat, sent a barrage of bullets toward this new threat. 

          Until Vin took a large chunk out of his left shin, sending him writhing to the ground. 

          Both Nathan and Buck shouted wildly for Salinas to drop his gun and get face down.

          Nathan stomped the gun out of his hand.

          Buck jumped over Salinas and headed for the back entrance at a run, as Josiah entered the bay.

          J.D. could not see Chris on the monitor, for the three bodies crammed into the corridor.  For a split second, he feared the worst, as he craned his neck trying to get a clear view on the center screen.

          He heard it before he saw it.  There was the bark of a gun and a howl of pain. 

          Colón's massive bulk spun sideways and wobbled backward into Salazar, nearly trapping Ezra between them.

          Colón collapsed to the concrete floor, the gun in his hand skidding several feet back out toward the bay.

          And then J.D. saw Chris, rolling across Colón in the narrow space trying to get his gun up and pointed at Salazar as Colón tried to grab hold of any part of Chris he could reach and tear it off.  Salazar brought his pistol around to bear.

          Buck charged to the rescue, firing into the wall.

          Ezra managed a pretty good imitation of panic, and pushed Salazar out of his way.  Salazar's shot went wild.

          There was just a breath of silence from Buck's and Chris's guns.  Then a rectangle of dim grey light opened in the wall as Ezra charged out the back door.

          Buck's gun barked again, and it only took Salazar an instant to decide to flee right after. 

          Buck took four steps toward the door before turning back toward Chris who was struggling to get the bulky, bucking, spitting and swearing Colón face down and into cuffs. 

          Then J.D. heard his own name in the mics.  "Two bogeys heading your way," Buck said.

          "Get 'em," Chris ordered as Nathan arrived to help. 

          "What are you waiting for?" Chris snarled at Buck and Nathan.  "Go after them!"

          If J.D. had been watching the monitor, he would have seen Buck throw Chris a crazy grin of his own as he banged out the back door in a dead run across the parking lot, Nathan right on his heels.

          But J.D. didn't see.  He was already out of the van and running toward the back fence, where Ezra and Salazar were clumsily scaling a stack of rusted iron barrels in an attempt to escape.

          They were over and dropping to the sidewalk before J.D. could get into shouting range.

          But he shouted anyway.

          "ATF!  Drop your weapons and get face down!" 

          Ezra pulled up short and his hands shot into the air.  Empty.  "Don't shoot!" he said, already dropping to his knees on the sidewalk.

          Salazar cast Ezra one quick glance of disbelief, and kept running forward.

          "ATF!" J.D. barked, feet hitting the blacktop.  "Drop the gun!"

          Salazar, in the middle of the road, raised his gun, and slowed to take aim.

          J.D. gripped his gun harder.  The muzzle came up to center mass.  "ATF!" he shouted again.  "Drop the gun." 

          "Fuck you, Pig" Salazar said, his finger on the trigger.

          J.D.'s gun rose to forehead level and he closed the distance.  "Drop it," he snarled.  "Or I'll drop you."

          Salazar's eyes widened.

          "Drop that weapon.  Drop it."  Voices rolled over them.

          "On the ground!  On the ground!"

          And then Nathan and Buck were right there.  Salazar's hands lifted into the air.  He went slowly to his knees, but he never took his burning hate-filled eyes off J.D.  Nathan yanked a protesting Ephraim St. Leger into cuffs.  Salazar spat a wad of phlegm at J.D. as Buck plucked the gun out of his hand. 

          J.D. stared hard right at Salazar all the way through, until he was face down on the ground with Buck's knee in his back.

          "You lose," J.D. said finally. 

          "We got it," Buck said. 

          J.D. turned back to secure the van, while Buck and Nathan hauled their prisoners to their feet.

          By the time he reached the van, J.D.'s hands were shaking so hard, he could barely open the door.

          He slid into his chair as the shaking spread to his knees.

          He tried not to think about it.  Tried not to think about Ezra on his knees, watching.  Tried not to think about Salazar's bullets pounding into his Kevlar vest.  Tried not to picture his own bullets blowing Salazar's head open.

          He felt sick and cold.

          But he knew there was nothing he could have—or would have—done differently.

          He stayed in the van and wrapped up and stored the audio and video for delivery to evidence, while the PD and a couple of EMTs swooped in to clean up the mess.

          The rest of the team ambled back to the van a few at a time.

          "Someone tell me why Plan A never works," Nathan groused as Vin lovingly returned his favorite rifle to its plush case. 

          "How long you got?" Vin answered, not looking up.

          "Heard you saved the day, John Dunne," Josiah said amiably.

          "I had help," J.D. said.  His knew his smile was weak.  Josiah noticed, surely, but he did not say anything about it.

          Buck was on the phone with the DPD.  J.D. could tell just from the tone of the buzzing voice on the other end, that they were none too happy when Buck accused someone in the department of being a rat.

          Buck wasn't having any of the attitude.  "Don't give me any of your cops versus feds crap," he snapped.  "I been on both sides of that fence, and I'm telling you to root out your mole before he gets somebody killed."

          The voice buzzed indignantly.

          Buck hung up.

          "We'll see how he likes talking to Chris," he said darkly at the phone.

          "Speak of the devil," Josiah said, as Chris finally made his way to the van. 

          His left sleeve sported a gaping tear.

          "Thought they had you for a minute there," Buck said gleefully.

          "Nah." Chris grinned around a split lip, like that was the most preposterous thing he had heard all day.

 

 

          Team Seven stumbled, exhausted after the adrenaline ebbed, into their bullpen only a minute or two before Team Eight, whooping and crowing, piled in the door, victory dancing and handing out high fives. 

          "Yeah, yeah," Buck said with mock sarcasm.  "Next time we'll sit around and you can hand the bad guys to us."

          A chorus of derision—and raspberries—drowned out anything else Buck had to say.

          Chris's smirk faded with Team Eight's departure.  "Wrap it up," he ordered. 

          There was a loud groan, which Chris didn't dignify.  He knew it was just for show.  They all knew the sooner their reports hit Chris's inbox, the sooner they would get to head home. 

          J.D. bent to it.  He was going to need a ream of extra paper just for the audio/visual he had recorded, plus forms, plus reports on the performance of the new mic.

          The new mic, which hadn't returned from lockup with Ezra yet.

          Not that J.D. was nervous about that.  Or so he tried to convince himself.

          He wouldn't know anything anyway until Ezra got sprung out of lockup.  Since he was in there with Colón, the PD would need to get both of them in front of a judge as quickly as possible.  Chris was on the phone with Travis right now.  And J.D. could tell from Chris's side of the conversation that Travis was working on it.  It seemed helpful that Colón's fancy lawyer was working on it, too.

          By noon, Josiah and Nathan had completed their wrap up and their reports.  Chris told them they could go home.

          Of course they didn't. 

          They wouldn't. 

          It was an unwritten rule.  No one goes home until the bust is over.  And for Ezra it wouldn't be over until he was back safe among them. 

          So they waited. 

          It was well past lunch when Chris came out into the bullpen to announce that Ezra had been arraigned and remanded to the county lockup.  He figured another hour or so.  He also told them that if they were going to hang around, they should at least attempt to look busy. 

          J.D. knew Chris wasn't talking to him.  He was still hip deep in papers.

          At close to 1:30, a court courier arrived with a manila envelope for Agent Dunne.  J.D. breathed a sigh of relief when he saw his tiny microphone inside, in a jumbled nest made of equal parts wires and strips of the tape they had used to secure it beneath Ezra's shirt.

          There would be no team sigh of relief until Ezra sauntered in.

          At 2:25 he finally made his appearance. 

          "Well, look what the cat dragged in!" Buck hooted, pulling his feet off his desk and rising from his chair.

          "Don't," Ezra said curtly when it looked like the bigger man was about to slap him heartily on the shoulder.

          J.D. thought about Ezra's trick shoulder and the way Nathan had yanked Ezra's hands behind his back. 

          "Your shoulder?" Nathan asked, his eyes assessing and apologetic at the same time.

          "It's fine.  Just a little tender," Ezra brushed the medic off.

          He made a show of counting heads.  "All here, I see," he drawled out.

          Buck looked at him quizzically.

          "No one fired in my absence?" he inquired. 

          "Not yet," Chris grumbled from his doorway, but then he smiled.  "Good work, Ezra."  His look of pride lingered on Ezra for a moment, then rested on J.D. before taking in the rest of the team.  "Good work all of you."

          Ezra gave a dramatic sigh as he powered up his computer.  "Never mind that I've been up all night," he called toward Chris's office.  "Never mind that I have been in a filthy cell all morning.  I'll just get right to work on those reports!"

          Chris didn't answer.

          "I'm fine!" Ezra called out a little louder.  "Thanks for asking.  And yes, I would appreciate it if you mentioned in your report how I saved your life!"

          Vin exchanged a glance with Josiah. 

          "You'd think the guy would want a nap first, rest up maybe before poking the grumpy grizzly bear," Vin observed.

          "Nope," Josiah demurred.  "Not our Ezra."

          "And how was your lecture on abnormal psychology in the modern workplace?" Ezra inquired without even missing a beat. 

          Vin and Nathan grinned at that. 

          J.D. shook his head.  Out of the office, but not out of the loop.  Never out of the loop.  Not even undercover.  Not Ezra.

          A booted foot clanged somewhere against the metal back of J.D.'s desk.  "You're awful quiet over there," Buck said. 

          "I have reports to do," J.D. pointed out.  "A lot of them."

          Buck gave an exaggerated roll of his eyes.  But when the rolling stopped, J.D. could see the concern written there.

          J.D. knew that if he said "I'm fine," or "Leave it alone," Buck would just take it as an admission that something was, in fact, on J.D.'s mind, in which case J.D would never shake him off.  He chose not to answer.

          "Nobody could'a done better than you did today.  Nobody," Buck affirmed.

          "I'll say," Nathan added. 

          "Being the communication center is tough enough without having to be in charge of saving and sealing the evidence, too," Josiah said.

          "If you ask me, that's what Crime Scene is for," Vin muttered.  Despite the extensive amount of cross-training Chris made them do, there was no way Tanner would ever spend a bust sitting in a van far away watching electronic equipment collect data.  Chris wouldn’t even bother to ask.

          "Don't forget heroically leaping from the van to stop the last fleeing bad man in his tracks!" Buck interrupted J.D.'s thoughts.  He made it sound like he and Nathan hadn't been right there. 

          "I'd be surprised if Chris don't give you a special commendation for today," Vin said.

          The sniper sounded so sincere that J.D. blushed.  They were nice words.  Praise from his team.  And they meant it.  It meant a lot coming from guys who sometimes seemed lightyears ahead of J.D. in experience. 

          They made him sound like a hero. 

          Too bad he didn't feel like one.

          "Guess I'm lucky Buck and Nathan got there when they did," J.D. said, suddenly uncomfortable with the attention. 

          Ezra sniffed.

          Buck's noise of derision was much louder.  "Salazar's lucky we got there when we did."  He turned to Ezra.  "Did you see the look on J.D.'s face."

          Nathan answered.  "Looked like a man who meant business."

          Ezra looked at J.D.  "Hopefully," he said at last, eyes glued to J.D.'s, "this entire idea of shooting to wound is now dead and irretrievably buried."

          J.D. had never meant for Ezra to worry about whether J.D. would back him up properly.  He supposed he hadn't considered how it would look to his teammates, to the men who depended on him.  He would never let anything happen to one of his teammates.  Surely they knew that.  He just thought maybe there was a little wiggle room.  A time and a place.

          "Dead as a doornail," J.D. answered with as much confidence as he could muster. 

          He sighed. 

          "Don’t take it so hard, Kid," Buck said companionably. 

          "Many a brave man has stood against the conventional wisdom, only to change the world," Josiah said.

          "Yeah," Buck said, pointing his pen toward the profiler.  "But those were usually good ideas."

          "I think preserving a human life where possible is a good idea," Nathan said pointedly.  And J.D. was grateful. 

          Ezra rolled his eyes.  "Setting aside the debatable sanctity of human life for a moment," he said with thinly disguised disgust, "one ought to be more concerned about preserving one's own life.  And mine, thank you very much."

          "Ain't everything about you, Ezra," Nathan said.  He turned pointedly toward J.D.  "It was a worthwhile consideration," he said.

          Vin snorted.  "In other words," Tanner said, poking J.D. in the arm, "it was stupid, but it was noble."

          J.D. made a face at him. 

          Buck shot a sideways glance at Ezra, watching him shuffle and straighten papers that Buck would have bet two day's pay were already perfectly ordered and straightened before he had started shuffling them.  He had seldom seen Ezra show nerves about going under the way he had this time around.  J.D.'s change of heart had rattled him.  Worse than that, Buck would have bet, was Ezra's teammates had known he was rattled. 

          "I propose a celebration," Buck announced. 

          "Surprise, surprise," Ezra muttered.

          Buck gave him a sly look.  "Last one to finish his reports buys our first round," he called out.

          Ezra glowered darkly in his direction.  "How is that in any way fair when I have only just arrived?  Despite the fact that I have been undercover for weeks, up all night, harassed by other law enforcement personnel and forced to endure the extended company of Emilio Salazar in a rather small jail cell, you still feel compelled to contrive a way for me to buy your beer?"

          Buck grinned at him.  "Okay," he said cheerfully.  "Last one to stop complainin' buys our first round."

          Ezra's glower got darker.  "I am not complaining," he retorted.  "I am merely stating facts which should be obvious even to a man of your somewhat limited capacity."

          "Did you miss us?" Buck asked leaning into Ezra's space.

          "Some of you," Ezra admitted after a moment—grudgingly.  "Maybe."

          Buck grinned smugly.  Welcome back, Ez, he thought.

 

 

          They dropped Ezra off at his house in his quiet little well-to-do suburban neighborhood, and he breathed deeply the familiar—if a trifle stale—smells of his own home.  He put his briefcase down beside the door and hung his coat up in his own coat closet.  He enjoyed brushing his teeth at his own sink far more than he would have admitted.  Then he climbed into his own bed, which was immeasurably more comfortable than the one in the apartment he had rented for his undercover stint supposedly traveling in and out of town.  He looked forward to the best sleep he had had in some time.  That and tomorrow morning. 

 

 

          It took an extra long soak in the hot tub to relax his sore muscles.  That was the upside.  The downside, as Chris well knew, was that it freed up his head to think entirely too much.

          The bust had gone fairly well, when he thought about what counted. 

          Ezra was safely back with the team.

          Based on what he heard from Buck and Nathan and even Ezra, he was sure that J.D. understood now on a much deeper level why it was important to make his shots count. 

          In short, the bad guys were in jail.  The evidence was secure.  None of his men got hurt. 

          Plans didn't go right often enough for Chris not to appreciate one that did—mostly.  He'd be writing up commendation letters as soon as the official reports were finished. 

          Not that there wasn't more work to do to put this bust to bed.  There was.  A lot of it before convictions were a done deal.  But even Chris wasn't paranoid enough to let that bother him. 

          He sank a little deeper in the hot water and looked up at the stars above the deck.

          All was right in his little corner of the world.  For now.  He wondered why he couldn't just let it go at that.

          But he knew why.

          Because he couldn't forget.

          J.D. might have forgotten—thankfully—for a moment there in the Saloon, basking in the well-deserved praise of his team.  But no matter how heroically he did his job today, come tomorrow, J.D. would still wake up in hot water with the press and the public. 

          Nor could Chris forget that come tomorrow, somewhere across town, someone would wake up under the crushing weight of absence. 

          J.D.'s world might have changed irrevocably.  But Casey and Buck and the rest of J.D.'s friends would help him eventually make it all right again.  Of that Chris was certain.  He'd be right there to help see to it.

          But Shana Morton's world would never be right again.  Of that Chris was equally certain.

          He closed his eyes and laid his head back. 

          All too soon, the bubbling jets turned themselves off, signaling time was up.  Chris sighed and dragged himself out of the hot water.  At least he wasn't going to be quite as sore tomorrow.  That was something, wasn't it?

          Too bad, it wouldn't be enough.

 

 

          Chris groaned and slapped half-heartedly at the clock radio alarm blaring out morning news not 12 inches from his head.  He missed and tried again.  And still missed.  Which made him think about getting up. 

          For the third morning in a row, his own name and J.D.'s popped out at him from among a jumble of words hastily read out by a cheerily disaffected reporter, clearly summing up the growing sentiment that J.D. Dunne was a representative of a class of loose canons with a total disregard for human life and Chris Larabee was the bludgeon of the federal government and the ATF's lack of comment was just another example of the entrenched "blue wall" that keeps bad cops safe from suffering the consequences of their excesses, poor decisions, corruption, and even lawbreaking.

          He was aware, of course, that the grumbling and shouting wasn't representative of the opinions of the majority of the public, but it was a lot more exciting to report about.  Of course, as Josiah had sagely pointed out, the more it got reported as truth, the more the story became the truth instead of the truth becoming the story. 

          Like he didn't know that already. 

          Oh well, he decided fatalistically, getting his bare feet to the floor.  It was too late to take a vacation and the past couldn't be undone.  Then again, the more air time they devoted to this ridiculous intimidation story, the less time they spent convicting J.D. Dunne in the press of crimes he didn't commit.  As bright spots went, it was pretty dim, but there it was. 

          The way it was going, Chris figured it was only a matter of time before the press found his house and started harassing him day and night right on his own front lawn. 

          He was glad he lived out of town.  The distance was probably the only thing that kept them away.  At Buck and J.D.'s townhouse, the landlord had had to get an injunction to keep them off his private property.  Still, Buck had reported that a small crowd of protestors had begun to gather at the community's front entrance, just two at first, but it had grown to about a half a dozen, and now they had signs.

          Chris sighed and headed for the shower.  Maybe some hot water would beat some focus into him.

 

 

          Across town, Miles Sandford's mellow bass, turned up to a ridiculous volume, filled the master bedroom of Nathan and Raine's house, as the two of them dodged around each other getting ready for their respective work days, stopping a moment here and there to trade a kiss, a touch and more than one comment on Sandford's show.

          He had Cyril D'Aprix back on. 

          "Why do you suppose it is that neither the ATF nor Agent Larabee are willing to comment on Larabee's behavior toward Shana Morton?" D'Aprix asked raising his voice with a theatricality that put Nathan's teeth on edge.

          "Why do you suppose neither Shana Morton's lawyer nor his little community voicebox have filed official charges?" Nathan snapped mockingly at the little radio.

          "Because according to the ATF, the allegations have no basis in fact," Sandford said.

          "And yet they have offered no facts to counter the allegations, nor have they attempted any explanation," D'Aprix insisted.  "They have done nothing whatsoever to attempt to justify Agent Larabee's actions."

          "I submit," D'Aprix said, barely disguising a note of triumph in his excited voice,  "there are no facts to counter the allegations.  And the absence of counter evidence is as good as confirmation of the facts before us."

          "Oh come on!" Nathan shouted indignantly.  "You got nothin'," he said.  "Nothin!  Try taking it to court and see what they say."

          Raine touched his arm on her way by carrying a pair of low-heeled pumps.

          Nathan stopped shouting at the radio long enough to see that she was wearing a skirt.  "No rounds today?" he asked.

          "Conference," she answered.  She looked up at him and frowned.  "The downtown symposium.  I told you about it."  Her frown grew more exasperated.  "You were going to meet me for lunch."

          She could see in his face that he had forgotten completely. 

          "Right," Nathan answered anyway, exactly as if he had remembered all along, as if she couldn't see through that bluff.  She sighed and shook her head but did not comment.

          "Twelve thirty at the downtown Hyatt," she reminded him.

          "I know," Nathan said testily, which of course meant it was a good thing she had reminded him, which he would never admit.

          She pulled on the low slingbacks instead of the pumps.  Cuter and just as comfortable.

          She opened her mouth to remind him he had promised to pick up her dry cleaning, too, but she noticed he was standing stock still, one sock on and one still in his hand, and the other hand flung out toward her and frozen there in space.  The disembodied voices between them had his whole attention.  She turned to the little radio, too.

          "Let me turn your own logic back on you for just a moment," Sandford was saying.  "And ask why, if the allegations are supportable, why has no one filed a charge or even a formal complaint?  Wouldn't that force the ATF and Agent Larabee to answer the allegations in some fashion?"

          Nathan nodded his head slowly, unconsciously, the furrows in his brow growing deeper.

          "As I understand it," D'Aprix answered, and his voice sounded sly even over the air, "Ms. Morton's attorney is in the process of pursuing formal charges right now.  In fact, I will be adding my own testimony to the statements regarding the harassment that I personally witnessed."

          Nathan's mouth gaped open.  "That self-important little—"  He bit off the last words before they left his lips and stood there flailing his hand in Raine's direction in search of a suitable substitute.

          He was sweet that way, and she appreciated both the courtesy and the effort.  But this was different.

          "Go ahead and say it," Raine said, slipping into the bathroom while it was available.  "'Cause if you don't, I might have to."  She closed the door. 

          She did not blame Nathan one bit for the words he was using just beyond, and she sighed as she realized that more than one of her colleagues would be too curious not to ask the questions on their minds—no matter how uninformed they might be.

          Her first thought, as people began to hesitantly ask her about Nathan's association with those ATF agents in the news had been to go with a solid "Nathan hasn't said much about it, and I haven't asked."  But clearly "no comment" and taking the moral high ground had offered no shelter to the innocent.

          Maybe it was time to start defending Nathan's friends for the good men she knew them to be.  Maybe it was time for the voices of reason to start shouting down the voices of hysteria.

          Maybe she should just take Nathan away on a surprise vacation for a week or two.

          That was a good thought—except he'd never abandon his little band of brothers when they were under siege.  And she'd just end up on that little tropical island alone.

          Which almost sounded good, too.

          "Twelve-thirty," she repeated, coming out of the bathroom, done up, made up, fully accessorized.  She tucked herself right into Nathan's waiting arms.

          "Downtown Hyatt, I know," he said. 

          "Call me if something comes up and you can't show," she said, pulling away and picking up her purse.

          "What could come up?" Nathan asked drily.

 

 

          Ezra was cleaned, pressed, tidied, and polished when he arrived in the bullpen shortly after 8:15, his briefcase in one hand and a very large cup of coffee in the other. 

          The six men already present stopped in their tracks and stared at him.

          "Good morning, gentlemen," Ezra said cheerfully, going straight to his desk and powering up his computer.  He took a moment to return his stapler and assorted office supplies to their proper places on his desktop.  He was, however, in far too good a mood to remind his teammates that they had their own office supplies and that his were not available for general public use.  Besides, that would just give them the satisfaction of knowing that they had irked him.  No, he had other plans this morning.

          While the computer powered up, he placed his paper coffee cup on its proper mug mat and began pulling papers out of his briefcase.  Pieces of papers, actually.  Clippings from a dozen or so newspapers, which he laid out neatly all across his desk.  He closed his briefcase with a snap and stepped back to admire his collection.

          Curiosity drew the others slowly closer. 

          "You been busy," Vin said.  "Undercover work must be boring."

          Chris, carrying a stack of file folders under his arm, crossed two steps from his office toward the door, and then gave in and came toward the others. 

          "Thought for sure you'd be sleeping in this morning, Ez," Buck said, craning his head to read the headlines on the articles.  Every single one of them was about the accusations against Chris.

          "Well, normally I would have been," Ezra said brightly, "but I couldn't stay away, not once I realized I was working with a genuine celebrity."

          From the corner of his eye, Buck saw Chris grimace.  It was swift, appearing and disappearing in the blink of an eye.

          Ezra didn't see it.  In fact, his green eyes twinkled mischievously, and his dimples showed wide as he swept one hand grandly across his collection of newspaper clippings, "I'm surprised you can find the time to work, Mr. Larabee," he said gleefully.  "What with your busy schedule of intimidation, puppy-kicking, and mugging little old ladies." 

          Buck and Vin grinned at that.

          Chris's mouth tightened at the corners.

          Ezra still appeared not to notice. 

          But J.D.'s eyes flickered nervously from Ezra to Chris and back.

          "Not to mention taking candy from babies and stealing ice cream from children,"  Ezra continued.  He grinned expectantly.

          As did Nathan and Josiah.

          Chris turned a face toward Ezra that was carefully neutral. 

          Chris swept his gaze over the entire room and announced, "I'm going upstairs.  No one leaves the bullpen until I get back."  He gave Buck a look that told everyone in the room that Buck was in charge of enforcing the rule.

          Nathan's smile melted away.

          Chris turned on his heel and went out the bullpen door. 

          Buck muttered something about a killjoy.

          Ezra looked around at his teammates in confusion.

          "Did he--?  Did I--?" He stopped stuttering and collected himself.  "What just happened here?" he asked, cataloguing the equally bewildered faces around him.

          Nathan grimaced.  "That was fast," he said grimly.

          Buck narrowed his eyes.  "What was fast?" 

          All eyes were on Nathan now.

          "Cyril D'Aprix was on Miles Sandford again this morning," the medic answered, hands on his hips and eyes still on the door.  He looked at his teammates.  "He said Gillingham was going to file formal harassment charges."

          "Formal charges?" Buck and Ezra chorused in disbelief.

          "You can't be serious," Ezra said, trying not to outright laugh.  "The idea that anyone would believe these ludicrous trumped-up allegations, this game of smoke and mirrors from a fast-talking, hearse-chasing, glorified grifter with a law degree and an expensive suit is preposterous."

          "Gee, Buck," Vin said acidly.  "the best you could come up with was 'It's a bunch of hooey'."

          Buck glowered darkly at him.

          Ezra stared at his teammates.  "What person with an ounce of intelligence would believe this ludicrous compilation of suspect circumstantial evidence?"  One hand began to wave rapidly in the air.  "It's thin at best," he snapped.  "It's…" the hand waved again searching for another word besides ludicrous and preposterous—both of which he had already used.  "Asinine," he said.

          "It's hooey," Buck said, confirming his earlier assessment.

          "It's a bunch of horseshit," Vin agreed. 

          Ezra's face loudly expressed his disdain of Vin's chosen vernacular.  This made the sharpshooter grin.

          "He's grasping at straws," Ezra continued a little louder.  "It's plain as day.  Who is seriously going to buy this?"

          Nathan pointed at the newspaper clippings adorning Ezra's desk.  "The people reading those papers," he said pointedly.

          "Oh, you mean the public," Ezra said sarcastically.  "Did you miss the part where I mentioned having an ounce of intelligence?"

          He sat down at his desk, now both flummoxed and irritated.  Some triumphant return this was for the conquering undercover hero.

          "Focus, people," Buck said through his teeth.  He looked at Nathan.  "Are you sure?"

          Nathan raised his eyebrows.  "Cyril D'Aprix doesn't just put something like that out in front of a radio audience unless he knows it's true."

          "Or has been told to say it," Vin put in.

          J.D., who had been silently fiddling with a string of paperclips on his desk, looked from Nathan to Vin and back to Buck.

          Buck's eyes focused on something far off in the distance.  "The ATF will have to investigate a formal complaint," he said more to himself than anyone else.

          "So much for not dignifying this matter with a comment," Nathan bit out.

          Buck's eyes narrowed and he looked over at Vin.

          J.D. couldn't contain it anymore.  "It's not like he's going to find anything," he said flatly.  "If Chris said he didn't do anything wrong, he didn't do anything wrong." J.D. declared.  "And that's that."

          "Sure, Kid," Vin said lightly.  He looked back at Buck. 

          J.D. looked at both of them like they had lost their minds.  "Well," he demanded.  "He already told them he didn't do anything.  So this is a complete waste of time."

          Buck's eyes flicked toward J.D. and then back to Vin.

          Ezra watched with equal parts interest and unease.

          "Waste of time," Buck repeated to Vin. 

          "Nice game plan," Vin said, the words bitter on his lips.

          "What?"  J.D. practically exploded.

          Buck took a deep breath and swore several times in his head.

          He looked at J.D.  "Gillingham's trying to buy time and uncover some dirt to help his case."

          "But Chris didn't do anything," J.D. protested, and Buck had to love him just a little more because squat in the middle of the worst event of his whole career he had just enough gumption to be indignant on behalf of his goddamn hero.

          "Chris didn't intimidate the woman," Buck said firmly.

          J.D. stared at him uncomprehendingly, so Vin jumped in to help.  "But he never said he didn't do anything wrong."

          There was another split second of uncomprehension before J.D.'s eyes got suddenly wide and his face formed a silent "o".  It was followed immediately by a thunderous glower aimed at Buck and Vin. 

          "I can't believe you two," he said and then sent the glare like scatter shot across the heads of his other teammates, "or any of you would believe that."

          Buck shrugged.  "You gotta know Chris," he said noncommittally.

          "I do know Chris," J.D. shot back.

          "Easy, Kid," Vin interceded again.  "We didn't say what he did was wrong.  Just that he did something."

          "How do you know that?" Ezra asked.  To his side, he saw Josiah's eyes slide away from Buck, J.D. and Vin. 

          "It's what he won't say," Nathan said. 

          Buck snorted.  "Well, he shouldn't have gone to Gillingham's office, for starters."

          "But everyone already knows about that," J.D. said testily.  "And it's not like that was technically wrong."

          "No, not technically," Nathan said uneasily.

          "So he didn't do anything," J.D. said stubbornly.

          "He did something," Vin said, looking straight at Buck.  "Just nobody knows what."

          "I wouldn't say 'nobody'," Buck muttered cryptically.

          Josiah, who had been watching the entire exchange silently said in his quiet, thoughtful, philosophical, and professional profiler voice, "If there was wrongdoing, the investigators will find it.  Until then, it's probably best for us to leave it alone.  In the meantime," he said with a finality that signaled a close to the conversation, "we all have work to do." 

          That was probably sensible advice, Ezra considered, as first J.D. sat down, then Nathan, and finally Vin followed Josiah's example and turned to their work.  Ezra looked up again several minutes later to see Buck casting a long and calculating look at an oblivious Josiah.  For reasons Ezra could not name, it put a nervous flutter in his stomach.

 

 

          Chris wasn't lying about the fifteen minutes.  It was almost fifteen minutes exactly when he returned to the bullpen.  There was nothing to read on the blank page of his face, but the tense line of his shoulders spoke volumes enough to the men who knew him.

          "Buck," he said tersely.  Casting a glance over the other five men, he added, "Bullpen in five.  Bring everything you have on all of our open cases."

          Normally this would have incited a collective groan, at the very least—just on principle.  Today there was not a complaint.  Not a peep.  Just five unhappy faces and fingers digging quickly through desk drawers and file folders and flipping rapidly along keyboards.

          Buck gave a glance around the bullpen and then followed Chris into his office without a word.

          The door closed behind them.

          Buck and Chris arrived in the bullpen after the others had already assembled.  Buck looked grim as he and the others settled into their chairs.

          Chris didn't sit. 

          "I have been placed on administrative leave," he said without preamble, "immediately following the conclusion of this operations meeting.  Our internal affairs division will be investigating a formal harassment complaint filed by Shana Morton's attorney on her behalf.  Pending that decision, I will continue on leave."  He looked across their faces and continued calmly.  "Until then, Buck will be the acting agent in charge.  Any questions?"

          "Yeah, lots," Vin retorted.

          Chris gave him a look that somehow managed to be both annoyed and tinged with gratitude at the same time.  "About the chain of command," Chris said firmly.

          Not that he should have expected there to be any, Ezra groused to himself.  The chain of command had been set up a long time ago.  Although their team history offered up a few choice examples of why Buck shouldn't be left in charge. 

          Chris seemed satisfied with the lack of questions and moved right on to updating the status of and planning next steps for their open caseloads.  Like it was business as usual.

          He looked at his watch as the meeting wound down. 

          "Well, if that's it," Ezra announced. 

          Chris held up his hand and nodded at Buck.

          Apparently that wasn't the end of it.  Ezra got comfortable again as Buck closed the conference room door.

          "I asked them for two hours to get our casework prepped," Chris said.  "I've got five minutes left before my escort shows up."  The corner of his mouth quirked up as he said it.  Ezra closed his eyes for a second and tried not to think about the kind of mayhem that kind of little smirk presaged.

          But Chris's face was deadly serious as he addressed J.D.  "Frank Lawford and I both believe Gillingham hasn't been able to find enough to disparage your character or your record in court."

          "I should say not."  The words escaped Ezra's lips before he could stop them.  He tried to ignore J.D.'s embarrassingly grateful look.

          "So he's trying to make you look overly aggressive and unethical by making it look like your team is overly aggressive and unethical.  Do you understand?"

          J.D. bristled slightly.  And Ezra realized the question was directed at the team.

          "Overly aggressive?" Ezra asked.  "Who would believe that?"

          Vin grimaced.

          "Zealous and enthusiastic maybe," Ezra continued.

          Buck winced.

          "Dedicated and passionate, certainly."

          Nathan looked at the table.

          "Liberally employing our sharpened strategic minds to succeed within the confines of a very thinly stretched, yet definitely confining set of strict rules and procedures defined by law and agency policy, maybe."

          Chris sucked in an audible breath between his teeth.

          "But seriously, what could they find in our past?" Ezra finished. 

          He looked at his teammates.  "I hope that didn't come off as too sarcastic."

          Chris was truly glaring at him now.

          Ezra waved a hand to indicate that he was finished and Chris could continue.

          "We did great work the other night.  Make sure everything we do going forward on these cases adheres completely, totally, and unquestionably to the rules."  The green eyes bored a hole through Ezra's forehead.  "If you have any questions about what the prescribed rules and procedures are, you can ask our expert on law and agency policy."

          Ezra swore hard on the inside, but he smiled on the outside and happily damned Chris to whatever part of hell would be willing to take him.

          There was a knock on the conference room door.  It swung open to reveal not one, not two, but three security guards, and a properly identified agent from internal affairs. 

          "Agent Larabee," the agent said evenly.

          Chris got up.  "That's it boys," he said.  "I'll expect all your paperwork to be in perfect order, too."

          Vin, facing safely away from the men at the door, gave a gesture that spoke eloquently of his feelings about the entire situation.

          Ezra turned to J.D. and summed up.  "We're doomed."

          "Knock it off," Nathan said, following Buck out the door.

          Chris gathered up a few possessions from his office as the security guards stood there looking distinctly uncomfortable. 

          The irony wasn't lost on Buck.  Or the stupidity.  After all, if Chris really wanted to stage an escape, based on weapons, combat, and hand-to-hand fighting training alone, he was more than a match for three guys with security training.  Add to that ornery and sometimes downright evil, and those boys were lucky Chris was going quietly.

          Of course, in Buck's opinion, keeping all of their noses clean to help J.D. was the only reason Chris was going quietly.

          The others stood in the bullpen and watched him leave with his armed escort.

          Then the IA agent turned to look at their angry faces.  "I'm just the messenger," he said finally.  "This wasn't my idea."

          Buck did his duty and gave the agent the hairiest eyeball he had in his impressive repertoire, but he grinned as soon as the man was gone.  "Well now that's something you don't hear IA say every day.  Them boys must think this is all a load of bullshit, too."

          Vin rolled his eyes.  "Well it sure as hell wasn't that ol' Larabee charm that won 'em over."

          "I just hope the investigation goes quickly," J.D. said glumly.  He thought for a second.  "And that they don't find anything."

          "What could they possibly find?" Ezra said darkly.  "I joined the team under suspicion of corruption from the FBI.  Buck is a sexual harassment lawsuit waiting to happen.  Josiah's "Old Testament" leanings are, unfortunately, amply documented in his files.  And let's not talk about what happened in Texas with Samuel Bautiste, shall we?" 

          Really, Ezra preferred not to even think about the set of circumstances that had led them to commit an unauthorized shakedown of the old man in the privacy of his little illegal arms-dealing compound.  Privately, he liked to pretend the entire fiasco had never occurred, but there was no doubt Shana Morton's attorney would take a very different view if he found the official reprimands scattered through Team Seven's individual files.  If his information gathering took him that far. 

          Ezra gave a very small and private shudder.  More than just J.D.'s reputation and career could be irredeemably damaged here.  Conceivably, they could all find their heads on the chopping block.  And Travis, too.  If it went that far. 

          Anyone with half a brain, amend that, anyone who had half a brain and had watched Chris Larabee operate long enough, would see what Chris's cooperation signaled.  If he was letting IA and potentially the public dig into his files and possibly his personal life, it was only because, like a master magician, he was directing their attention elsewhere while he used the other hand to stuff the rabbit back into the hat—or perhaps the skeletons deeper into the closet.

          Considering what Ezra knew about the skeletons, he hoped whatever Chris had them looking at was damned distracting.

          Vin announced that he was off to check his rifle and his rappelling equipment for tomorrow's stint backing up the boys of Team Eight as they reeled in Robert Solomon and a big chunk of his organization.

          Buck said he was going down to the team van with J.D. to check out Team Eight's a/v equipment to make sure the bust would be properly documented so everyone could see just how well Team Seven crossed all the I's and dotted all the T's on their work.

          Ezra presumed Buck's phrasing was some sort of attempt at being ironic, so he didn't point out the errors in mechanical conventions of the English language.  He hoped Buck was being ironic, anyway.

          He raised his hand.  "While you're gone, are we allowed to use the restroom facilities?"

          Buck glowered at him.

          "While I’m gone, you need to get your shit together to reprise your starring undercover role if we need you to.  This bastard's going down tomorrow come hell or high water, and maybe the papers'll have something real to talk about instead of this shit," Buck snarled.  "Let's go," he snapped at J.D. and practically herded him out of the office.

          "Perhaps someone should remind Buck to use his professional language during the post-arrest interview," Ezra muttered.

          "This funny to you, Ezra?" Nathan asked testily.  "'Cause from where I'm sittin' there ain't a whole lot here to laugh about."

          "Oh believe me," Ezra sighed.  "I am aware of the problems."

          Josiah hadn't said a word in well over half an hour.  His silence did not slip Ezra's notice. 

 

 

          It was strange to be home in the middle of the day, and it was one of those rare moments when Chris Larabee was in a position to confront something about himself he seldom realized.  In this case, it was that his job was frequently annoying, all-consuming, exhausting, grinding, thankless, filled with pain-in-the-ass bureaucracy, impossible red tape, senseless rules, and at times, hair-raising danger to himself and people he cared about.  Still, when it was taken from him, even temporarily, he goddamn missed it.  Already.

          He wandered through his empty house and tried unsuccessfully not to scroll through the details of the cases he had just gone over with his hand-picked crew of top-notch agents.  He forced himself to put down the phone twice but couldn’t seem to keep from making a list of details he needed to double-check with Buck.

          He did vow not to call until after dinner, though.

          He needed a distraction and thought about going to see his horse.  Yosemite, the man he paid to make sure the horses got cared for regularly—seeing as his own schedule damn sure wasn’t too regular—had let the horses out into the pasture today to enjoy the fine weather and the green grass, and there was no telling where those beasts would end up.  Chris figured hunting Pony out of whatever section of the ranch's acreage he was hiding out in would be a decent enough distraction for a while.

          That or the newspaper. 

          But he wasn't ready to face the newspaper yet. 

          He pulled on his barn boots and went out the back door.

 

 

          Gerald Gillingham seldom slept in.  There was far too much going on in the world that bore monitoring and sometimes massaging to bear fruit.  He had been called opportunistic before.  He didn't think the description was meant to be flattering.  However, he did mention to the man who had spat it at him so derisively, that good things come to those who are smart enough to go out and get them. 

          Gillingham had no problem with the word opportunistic. 

          It was the part where the man also called him a parasite that he objected to.

          Gillingham had chalked the attitude up to sour grapes. 

          As he had long been of the opinion that living well was, in fact, the best revenge, this morning he exercised his right and rewarded himself with an extra forty-five minutes of sleep and a morning of working at home.  He deserved it for how splendidly his game plan was going. 

          He had good reason to be self-congratulatory, given how badly the game had started out.

          Agent Dunne, the little bastard, seemed to have the luck of the Irish.  By all accounts— _all_ accounts dammit, even from people who purported not to actually like the man—he was a hard-working, dedicated, passionate federal agent.  What's worse, he was a law-abiding citizen.  Gillingham's investigators failed to turn up any history of quid pro quo or even a hint of doing favors for his family or friends.  The weasel even kept his car insurance and registration up to date.  Nor did he have so much as a parking or speeding ticket chalked up to his record.  No points on his license even.  Most damning, his neighbors described him as not only decent and upstanding, but actually "nice".  It was not only practically unbelievable, but downright unfair.

          But then, just as Gillingham was beginning to entertain the notion of admitting to himself the existence of a possibility, however slight, that he might not be able to win the Morton case, fate handed him a very large present.  A tall, arrogant, Aryan present with just the kind of bad attitude he had wished Dunne would have displayed:  Dunne's boss, Senior ATF Agent Christopher Larabee.

          Unbelievably, this man had the brass balls and stone cold callousness to try to intimidate Gillingham's client right there in front of Gillingham himself.  And that moment of unbelievable stupidity had opened doors upon doors of opportunity.  It was beautiful, really.

          Gillingham smiled to himself over his cup of gourmet coffee lightened with a strong dose of cream and sugar.  Still in his silk pajamas, an indulgent gift to himself, he sat with his feet propped up on his mahogany coffee table, and scanned the array of media devices with which his living room was equipped.

          He smiled over the talking heads, chuckled to himself at the man-on-the-street commentaries, the public outrage, and clucked his tongue with mock sympathy at the sternly offended figures of local law enforcement.  In general, the spin machine was working its wonderful magic exactly as planned, creating a general atmosphere of offended self-righteousness among the distrustful and ignorant masses. 

          Gillingham was aware his subpoenas and right to view Dunne's and his colleagues' professional records was severely limited to what he could show to have a bearing on his case.  But he refused to see that as an obstacle.

          His mother, a somewhat limited woman in her cheerful outlook, liked to recite platitudes, among which was the old saw "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade."  Over the years, Gillingham had altered this outlook somewhat.  He preferred to say, "When life won't hand over the lemons, then haul something yellow out of the cupboard and make something that looks like lemonade."  In Gillingham's experience, appearance could be more powerful than substance.  In fact, sometimes appearances were everything.

          All he had to do now was continue keeping up appearances.  After all, it was only a matter of time before he found something useful to work with.  Anyone with an attitude like Larabee's was bound to have some nasty blots on his record.  And probably plenty of them for Gillingham to pick and choose among.  Then the fun would start.

          J.D. Dunne might not be corrupt, but his boss was arrogant.  Ergo, Gillingham told himself cheerfully:  Step one:  Make his arrogant boss look corrupt.  Step two:  Get the ignorant masses howling for corrupt heads to roll.  Step three: Expose the alleged corruption of any and all members of Dunne's inner circle.  Step four:  Point the same paintbrush at Dunne and spatter him with the fallout.  It was a wonderful formula. 

          He toasted himself with his orange juice and spent a second to give his mom a little strategic credit here, too.  After all, she had also liked to say "You can tell a man by the company he keeps."

          A local news network caught his eye, and he turned up the volume just loud enough to see a small group of protestors near the federal building.  They had signs.  "Protect and Serve.  Not harass and hurt."  Not particularly clever but to the point. 

          Step two was now also well under way.

          Gillingham reminded himself to have his secretary send his mother something nice in her birthday card this year.  At this rate, he had the pleasant feeling he was going to be in a position to be generous.

          In the meantime he folded back his copy of the Clarion.  This paper had taken a different tack today than the others.  Instead of piling up allegations and shouting for blood, today the Clarion had chosen to run a human interest story about what a nice boy Kyle Lebec had once been.

          He sighed happily and leaned back in his chair.  Events could not be falling more neatly into place.

 

 


	12. Chapter 12

          The townhouse phone rang at just a little after six that evening.  J.D. answered it, despite Buck telling him not to.  A tiny knot of people still stood vigil across the street from their townhouse complex and Buck was starting to see newsvans prowling the neighborhood.

          J.D. waved the little caller id screen in Buck's face.  "It's just Chris," he said scornfully.  "Hey, Chris," J.D. said into the phone while mocking Buck with his eyes.  "Sure.  Here he is."

          He put the phone in Buck's hands and went back into the living room where the TV was on.

          "What?" Buck barked irritatedly into the phone.

          "Everything set for tomorrow?" Chris asked.

          "Didn't we have a meeting about this?" Buck asked.  "Didn't we spend two hours going over all the little details already?  In fact, I think you were even there."

          "Well, I thought of a few more details," Chris replied, seeming somewhat irritated himself.

          "Well then maybe you shouldn't have got your ass suspended, so you could take care of them properly," Buck answered.

          "You done?" Chris asked after a short silence that Buck thought he should probably have taken as a warning. 

          "Yeah, I'm done," Buck answered, sending Chris a warning of his own that would probably bounce right off of Larabee's thick skull. 

          Chris reeled off a short list of reasonable concerns Buck really wished someone would have thought of while they were all still in the office and could have dealt with them.  He didn’t say that, though.  He simply grunted out an "uh-huh" after each one and tried not to make it sound like he was really saying "Fuck you."

          Fat lot of good the effort was, though.  Buck was sure Chris could read his mind anyway.  That being the case, he took the opportunity to psychically project a few more choice words in the general direction of Chris's ranch.

          When Chris stopped speaking, Buck said, "I'll take care of it."

          "And remember to—"

          " I got it.  I know," Buck interrupted him.  " I'll get it done by the book.  Scout's honor.  I swear."

          This time it really did sound like "Fuck you" and Buck knew it.

          "Look," he snapped into the thunderous silence in his ear, not really sure whether Chris hadn't just hung up.  "Either you trust me or you don't.  And if you don't, then you should have left someone else in charge."

          "I trust you," Chris said, his tone colored with a little "Fuck you right back."  "It's—"

          "It's the bad guys you don't trust," Buck recited right along with him.  "Yeah, yeah, I know.  I don't trust 'em either, Pard, but you gave me a job to do an' I'm gonna do it.  You know that."

          From the living room, J.D. listened to Buck's side of the conversation. 

          There were a lot of "I know"s until Buck finally let out a long hissing and exasperated "Chris".

          And a second later Buck said, "Yes, Mother, I promise I'll call."

          Then Buck called Chris a micro-managing, obsessive-compulsive, anal-retentive, arrogant, narcissistic prick, and J.D. smiled because he knew Buck had hung up the phone first. 

          "Chris sends his love," Buck announced, coming into the living room.

          "I heard," J.D. answered without looking away from the television.

          Buck grinned at that.  "I sent mine back," he said smugly, sliding into his favorite chair.

          "I heard that, too," J.D. grinned.  "We all set for tomorrow then?" he asked after a moment.

          "Don't you start, too," Buck growled. 

          A Fig Newton missile completed its pre-programmed arc and hit its target squarely:  the side of J.D.'s head.

          J.D. gave Buck a nasty look and tossed the used missile back at its owner with a lot less success.  He didn't say it, but he sure thought it hard enough.  Why on earth would Chris Larabee worry about putting a man who throws Fig Newtons in charge of Team Seven's part in tomorrow's big bust? 

          And the next day's bust.

          And the next day's.

          J.D.'s stomach grew a little tighter.  And he tried not to think about what might be in those files for Gerald Gillingham to find.  Or what the investigation might turn up about Chris.

          No matter what, he was sure Chris had not tried to intimidate that woman.  He was sure of it.  And he was determined to stay sure of it.  No matter what.

 

 

          Perhaps it was the late hour.  Perhaps it was the personality of the men involved.  Perhaps the conversants were simply well balanced.  Whatever it was, it was, for Travis, a surprisingly calm and civil conversation, given the topic. 

          On one side of Travis's desk, sat Director Vincent Benedetto, whose voice seldom rose above the volume necessary for conversation in a small private room.  On the other side, sat Vic DaVos, Deputy Director of Public Relations.  He was a man whose tone usually quite clearly demonstrated either his enthusiasm or lack thereof for the topic at hand.  Right now, his tone demonstrated he was considerably less philosophical about the matter than Director Benedetto.

          Travis, safely behind his desk, sat smack between them and waited warily.  He professionally respected both men, but he was keenly aware he was outranked in this company, and years had taught him not to expect any conversation behind closed doors with ranking members of the directorship to ever be exactly what it purported to be. 

          At least neither of these two men had tried to pretend this was just a friendly conversation.

          Benedetto had characterized it more as an "informational interview."  They wanted Travis to try to "fill in some gaps" for them. 

          Travis didn't reply beyond a simple nod.  After all, the interrogation he expected would begin at the convenience of the interrogators.

          "You must admit," DaVos noted.  "There are a number of incidents in Agent Larabee's file that could be deemed questionable in a certain light."

          As an opening salvo, it wasn't particularly impressive. 

          "All properly dealt with as necessary," Travis said, easily deflecting the incoming shrapnel.  He fired a warning shot of his own.  "All things considered, he has remarkably few disciplinary incidents in his file."

          "Except for having a smart mouth," Benedetto rumbled from his chair.  Travis could have sworn he saw Benedetto's lips twitch up.

          "Few complaints of any substance," Travis amended reluctantly.  The man had a point.  "And few of them from outside the Bureau," he added quickly.  Most complaints against Chris Larabee tended to come from people who had to work with him—or who tried to tell him how to do his job.

          "There was a complaint about willfull destruction of property," Benedetto offered helpfully. 

          Travis tried not to give him the evil eye.  "The property was destroyed by the man's own employee," he answered with proper indignation.  "Drove a forklift through the supervisor's office in an attempt to conceal evidence and murder my agents."

          "See," Benedetto said disinterestedly to DaVos, "All easily explained."

          DaVos let out a disgusted exhale.  What or whom his disgust was directed at was hard for Travis to pin down.  "As you can clearly see," DaVos pointed out, "right now it isn't what's actually true that concerns us so much as what has the appearance of being true."

          "That's positively Orwellian," Benedetto said, glancing up briefly toward Travis.

          "And yet this is the society we live in and the situation in which we find ourselves," DaVos countered.

          "Sad but true," Benedetto conceded.  "But does one play along with the game or does one push for truth to be revealed?"  He turned his attention from DaVos to Travis.

          He didn't wait for a reply from Travis, but seemed to make up his mind for himself.  "Seems like either way, the truth is a good place to start," he said.

          DaVos seemed to agree with whatever Benedetto was suggesting, and both men now looked at Travis.

          "Do we know for a fact that Agent Larabee did not attempt to intimidate Shana Morton?" DaVos asked.

          "I'd stake my life on it," Travis answered firmly.

          "That's very nice," DaVos retorted, unimpressed, "but I want to know if it's true."

          Benedetto did chuckle at that.  "See, that was a perfect example of appearance of truth.  You should get that as a soundbite.  Your guys will eat it up."

          DaVos ignored Benedetto and asked Travis, "What makes you so sure?"

          "I know Chris Larabee," Travis answered.

          "That's not very convincing," DaVos put in.

          "Why?" Benedetto asked DaVos.  "Do _you_ know Chris Larabee?"

          "No," DaVos said shortly.  "And neither does the public who will soon be screaming for his head.  We need something a little more convincing than blind faith, however firmly placed."

          "So why did Agent Larabee go to Gillingham's office?"  Benedetto asked, proceeding smoothly to his next question.  Travis wondered if the man had been a lawyer at one time, too.

          "On the face of it, he went to deliver some papers that we had to hand over under subpoena," Travis said. 

          "On the face of it," Benedetto repeated drily. 

          "I think he went to size up the competition," Travis answered.

          "Because you know Chris Larabee?" DaVos asked icily.

          "Correct," Travis answered.

          "The competition being Gerald Gillingham and not Shana Morton?" DaVos clarified.

          "Exactly."

          Benedetto nodded his head at something that no one else seemed to have heard.  "And the incident at the cemetery?" he asked.

          "Purely coincidental," Travis replied, trying not to let himself feel as if he had just been dropped into the defendant's chair.  "He was visiting the graves of his wife and son."

          "Some coincidence," Benedetto sniffed. 

          Travis refused to bristle at the insinuation. 

          "The man doesn't have any luck at all, does he?" Benedetto asked no one in particular, but the gray eyes regarded Travis.

          "Bad luck," DaVos answered in Travis's place.  "I never met the man before today, but his file certainly makes for interesting reading.  He has been known to go to some unusual lengths to protect his agents."

          Bendetto raised an eyebrow.  "Ever intimidate a witness?"

          "Not a witness per se," DaVos answered noncommittally.  "Detainees certainly.  A few other federal agents and at least one assistant director seem to have made more formal complaints."

          Perversely, Travis worked hard not to smile at that. 

          "But it's clear he approached this woman," Benedetto continued.

          "Yes," Travis answered tiredly.  "He's never denied that."

          "Any idea why?" Benedetto asked, shifting upward out of his slouch.

          Travis shook his head.  "He won't say."

          DaVos and Benedetto exchanged a look.  "Did he speak to her?" DaVos asked.

          Travis shrugged.

          "Did she speak to him?"

          "Not that I can tell,"  Travis said, spreading his palms out on his desk.  "In fact it looks like they basically stood there and looked at each other.  Then he gave her his business card and walked away."

          Both men looked at Travis.

          "To what purpose?" DaVos asked drily. 

          "Is there a reason Agent Larabee would give the woman an invitation to call him?  Professionally?"  Benedetto asked curiously.

          "I believe he thought it was a gesture of sympathy," Travis said.

          DaVos looked away.  "The public isn't going to believe that for a minute."

          "What if it's true?" Benedetto said.

          DaVos gave him a look of partial disgust.  "Again, appearance of truth is better than actual truth right now."

          Benedetto looked disgusted now, too. 

          Travis didn't blame him.  "Would it have been better if it were from Hallmark?" Travis asked testily.

          DaVos gave him a frosty look.  "Did I not mention the unusual lengths Agent Larabee has gone to in the past to protect his agents?  Why the sudden sympathy for a woman who's suing one of his own?"

          Travis felt his jaw tighten.  "I don't know," he said more sarcastically than he had intended.  "Why would a man who lost his own family be at all sympathetic to a woman who just lost her son?"

          "I'm just asking the questions the news is going to ask," DaVos said defensively.  "I'd like to know the answers when I have to field the questions."

          Benedetto cleared his throat.  "Let's rephrase the question.  Do Larabee and Morton have a prior association?  Is there a prior relationship that would give him some kind of right to approach her?"

          "What are you asking?"  Travis returned with vague apprehension.

          "Did Larabee know Shana Morton before the incident at the lawyer's office?" DaVos answered.

          "Besides the cemetery, not that I know of," Travis said thoughtfully.  For the life of him, he couldn’t think of any circumstances where Shana Morton and Chris Larabee would cross paths in the unassociated spheres of their lives and acquaintances.  "She works at a hardware store," he said lamely, and couldn't even believe the words came out of his mouth.

          "On the loading dock," DaVos confirmed, as if he had actually considered the idea ahead of time.

          "No prior association then," Benedetto said.  He hummed a little noise of musing.  "It seems interesting to me that while confirming that he did nothing to try to intimidate her, Agent Larabee has never come right out and criticized her for insinuating he did." 

          DaVos nodded his head, as if he and Benedetto had already discussed that very point.

          "Most people, at some point during one of our several interviews," DaVos said, "would have just come right out and said she's lying.  Or at the very least  that she doesn't know what she's talking about.  He might reasonably have insinuated she was out to get anyone associated with J.D. Dunne.  He might have insinuated much worse."

          "He has, however, confined his insinuations to the lawyer, Gerald Gillingham," Benedetto added.  "In fact, he seems to be certain the accusation is coming from Gillingham and not from Shana Morton at all.  That the lawyer made it up."

          "That makes sense," DaVos offered less than charitably, "if you know anything about Gillingham.

          "I suppose," Travis said hesitantly, "Shana Morton and Agent Larabee do have one connection that might have overridden his sense of propriety, in a strict procedural sense."

          He ignored the way Benedetto snorted at hearing Chris Larabee and the idea of "strict procedural propriety" together in the same sentence. 

          DaVos skewered him with a look.  "I'd really like you to tell me there's no chance that Larabee and this woman have a past history.  Or any present relationship."

          "I imagine," Travis answered, ignoring the insinuation, "losing a child is plenty enough shared history for both of them."

          Travis cleared his throat before continuing. 

          "So yes, I can say with utter certainty that there's no chance he tried to intimidate her.  Not even for one of his agents," Travis said.  "Because I know Chris Larabee,  And I know what it's like to be in that particular club."

          There was a silence in the room as all three men digested this fact.

          "That's a powerful truth," DaVos said finally.  "We could certainly feed that to the masses."

          Travis's expression changed so rapidly, it surprised even Benedetto.  "Don't you dare," Travis intoned, his eyes glittering dangerously, and his face alive with threats unspecified.

          Benedetto held up a hand.  "Leave it alone," he said to DaVos.  He nodded an assurance to Travis.  "We're not going anywhere with this information," he said.  "We know what we need to try to get a handle on Larabee's motives."

          "Motives," Travis mused, the threats not quite faded from his face.  "Just remember, when you're discussing these so-called motives, he didn't do anything wrong."

          "I'll remember," DaVos said grimly. 

          Travis watched the two men go out the door. 

          It took Travis a very long time to ease the tension out of his shoulders.  In the end he decided to go home and let Evie do it for him.  That didn't stop him from going over the entire conversation from start to finish and in reverse during the drive.  By the time he got home, his jaw ached from clenching it.

          Evie greeted him at the door with a glass of Scotch.

          "Your assistant called," she said.  She gave him a quick kiss, took his coat, and pushed him toward the sofa.

          "I can't tell you," Orin said, wiggling his jaw from side to side.

          "Of course not," Evie answered.  She came out of the kitchen with a plate.  "I didn't expect you could."

          He looked at her. 

          "Let's go away on vacation," he said suddenly.  "Let's run off and leave all our responsibilities behind.  Let them all fend for themselves for a day or two.  Let's do it."

          He meant it, too.  Let his agents all figure out their own problems.  The agency would survive.  The world would survive.  God knew, Team Seven would survive.  They'd probably work some kind of promotion out of the deal.  Screw them all.  He wanted a vacation.

          "Let's," Evie said simply.  And he loved her for it.

          "Right after you get all your boys out of trouble," she added.

          "What's wrong with tomorrow?"  Orin asked petulantly.

          She smiled and sat down beside him, sliding cool hands into his shirt collar.

          "What kind of vacation will it be with you sighing and moaning and groaning and wondering if J.D. is all right?" she asked, squeezing hard enough that an embarrassing little grunt escaped from Orin's lips.

          "If we wait until that bunch are all out of trouble, we'll never get away," he groused.

          Evie squeezed again, and this time the grunt turned into more of a groan.  He loved her for that, too.

          "Yes, Papa Bear," she said teasingly.

          And his own words came painfully back to him. 

          He hissed as she went to work on another particularly tight spot. 

          She was right, as usual. 

          He loved her for that, too, but he wouldn't give her the satisfaction of telling her. 

          "Eat," she ordered him.

          "How am I supposed to eat while you're poking my neck," he grumbled.

          Evie knew him too well to be offended.  She laughed at him and kissed his cheek, withdrew her hands and put the dinner plate squarely in his lap.  Then she went off to take care of other matters until he was ready to be nice again.

          Yep, she knew him far too well.  He was definitely going to have to keep her.

 

 

          In the silence of his empty house, under a single lit lamp, Chris finally opened the Clarion to the story below the fold and began to read about another little boy who was no more. 

          Someone else's little boy.

          A little boy who got to grow up.  Almost. 

          Not like his own son. 

          In the spare prose of the news, the article spoke eloquently enough of a mother who proudly watched her baby boy lose his baby fat.  Saw him lose his baby teeth one by one.  Saw him get tall, reaching skyward until she had to look up to scold him. 

          Here was her boy, who went to school, who told jokes, and who got shy around girls his age.  A boy who outgrew his Superman pajamas.  And a boy who was old enough to begin to think about what he wanted after high school was over. 

          His mother supposed, looking back, that maybe he had shown some little signs recently.  Signs of giving up.  Of giving in.

          A boy who had had enough time to begin to despair of things he thought he'd never get.  A boy who had his belief in fairy tales and causes, and heroes stolen from him little by little, and let his belief in people, in the world, in the people who loved him, go the same way. 

          This boy had found a life-long friend in another chubby-cheeked pre-schooler just like him, and in the end, took that other chubby-cheeked child with him to that convenience store.  They were together when death came. 

          And whether either one of them really meant to be there, no matter which one had a gun and which one didn't, or whether anyone had really meant to start shooting, in the end Kyle Lebec and Tyson Morton both left behind two mothers who didn't seem to know what danger their sons had been in until they were taken away. 

          The paper rested on the coffee table beneath Chris's hand and he stared unseeing through the glass doors to the deck, past his own reflected image, and into the dark beyond.  He got up abruptly and walked out into the dark. 

          He couldn't have said where he was going.  All he knew was he had to get away from the emptiness of his house. 

 

 

          "Did you see the article?" Even over the phone, Kierra's voice was breathless and brittle with excitement.

          "I did," Shana said, and tried to sound bright for her friend. 

          "She did him proud," Kierra said, her voice so wistful it hurt to hear it.

          "She did," Shana answered over the aching lump in her throat.  She supposed she shouldn't have been so surprised how much it hurt to read about Kyle like that.  She had been there for so much of what the Travis woman had said in her article.  She could see Kyle clearly.  She could hear his laugh, familiar even now, could hear the places where it had started to deepen and crack. 

          Shana's mother had looked at her knowingly and pushed the tissue box closer when Shana had sat down with the paper.  In the end, she had taken the paper and the tissues together and fled toward her room.  She didn't make it.  She ended up in Ty's room, sitting on the mattress she had finally gathered up the courage to strip bare, and reading the article aloud in the direction of his pillow, until her voice finally broke and she could speak no more.

          "I just wanted people to see him the way he was," Kierra said once more.  As if she were apologizing for it.  Still trying to explain why she brought that reporter to Shana's door. 

          Shana didn't want to talk about it.  What was done was done.

          Until she had read the article, until she had seen Ky, cute and funny, angry and proud, shy around girls and worried about clothes and hair and the future, brought to life again in those words, Shana had not realized how much she longed to hear someone else speak kind words of Ty without speaking of victims or violence.  She could not admit that to Kierra, not out loud.

          "I'm glad for you," Shana forced out.  "People should know who Ky was." 

          He was a child, a boy, a beautiful boy.  He was a human being.  He was not a news story.  People needed to know that his life was more important than the way he died.

          She realized Kierra had fallen silent.  Listening to the faint sounds over the phone, Shana knew Kierra was probably crying.  And why shouldn't she?  The tears spilled fresh down Shana's face. 

          She forced a smile into her voice.  "Ky would be pissed you told them he was shy around girls."

          A hiccupping laugh burst out of Kierra on the other end.  "You mean, Mr. 'Swave'."  She made the word rhyme with "shave" just like Ky had, using his new word for the first time, all those years ago, standing in Kierra's kitchen.  The boys were twelve then.  And both still thought the whole world was theirs for the taking.

          Shana answered with a hiccup of her own and remembered how she and Kierra had laughed and laughed—and laughed all the harder as Ky demanded to know just what was so funny.

          "You can't be it if you can't pronounce it," Kierra had told him flatly.  The name stuck with him, and from time to time raised its ugly head whenever Ky did something stupid in the name of being cool.

          "I miss him," Kierra blurted out. 

          "I know," Shana answered, the phone against her shoulder as she rocked back and forth, wiping impatiently at her eyes and trying to brush the wet away from her hair.  "I miss them, too," she said. 

          She did.  She missed Ky.  And she missed the two of them together. 

          "Do you think," Kierra asked hesitantly.  "Do you think it will matter to those people they stick on a jury?  Do you think they will remember?"

          Shana gave a long shuddering sigh.  "Yes," she lied.  "I think they will."

          She knew Kierra didn't believe her either, but it was still her job to say it.

          They talked a little longer of nonsense, of everyday concerns, of people at work, and things they used to think mattered. 

          After she had hung up, Shana sat for a few moments longer on the couch.  She looked up startled to see her mother looking at her.

          "Did you lie or do you really think this article is going to make a bunch of white folks think differently about three black boys who held up a convenience store?" 

          Shana flinched at the words and replied on instinct.  "Ty didn't go there to hold up that store.  He went because…"

          Her mother didn't let her finish.  "Ain't nobody gonna know that unless you open your mouth an' speak up," she chided her.  "That reporter lady did good by Kyle.  An' she offered to do good by Ty, too.  What harm could it do?"

          Shana looked at her.

          "'Less you too proud to up and say your child made a mistake," her mother said, sliding into a chair with a sigh.  Her legs were hurting her more and more.  Shana was going to have to take her to a doctor here to get her medicine refilled if she was going to stay much longer.

          "I'm not too proud," Shana retorted.  She hated it when her mother called her that.  Always had.  Mostly because it was true.

          Her mother gave her a hard look.  "Ty got himself in that trouble all by his own self," she said.  "An' the sooner you figure out you were his mama and not the Lord God Almighty, the better off you gonna be."

          Shana's face flushed hard.  "Mama," she snapped.

          "Tyson's choices ain't your fault," her mother said adamantly, propping up both legs on a cushion on a nearby ottoman.

          "He was fifteen," Shana said.  Fifteen.  Too young to be making his own decisions. 

          Her mother let out the kind of unladylike snort that she would never use in company.  "I sure ain't takin' no blame for decisions _you_ made at fifteen."

          Shana glared at her.

          Fifteen.  Too young to be making her own decisions.  Too old to keep from doing it anyway.

          _Oh, Ty._

          She stifled the thought. 

          "I'll think about it," she answered stiffly.  "Though what good it will do, I can't see."

          "Can't hurt," her mother repeated stubbornly, picking up a magazine that she had taken from some neighbor's recycling.  It had the address label ripped off.

          "I said I'd think about it," Shana growled.

          Her mother didn't answer, except to mutter out, "Girl always got to have the last word," as Shana left the room.

          _Like mother, like daughter_ , she thought. 

          She had Mary Travis's business card on her dresser.  Seemed like she was getting quite a collection of cards.  Gerald Gillingham, esquire, specializing in personal injury.  Christopher Larabee, Senior Agent, Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.  Mary Travis, Reporter, Clarion News Media. 

          Shana waited until after her mother went to bed to make the call.

 

 

          It took Mary a second or two to recognize the ringtones from her cell phone.  It had time to ring a few more times before her sleep-stupefied brain could force her to climb out of the recliner and fumble through her bag for the phone.

          She had fallen asleep in front of the TV.

          She tried to sound bright, wide awake, and, above all, competent as she answered the call from a number she didn't recognize. 

          She pushed her hair back out of her face excitedly and fought to really get awake as the woman on the other end hesitantly identified herself and even more hesitantly began to fumble through an explanation of why she was calling so late.

          Mary knew right away that her first task would be to convince Shana Morton she was doing the right thing. 

          "Yes," Mary said.  "I can talk right now.  Do you want to talk over the phone or do you want to meet somewhere?"

          She wondered if she could really call Orin and Evie so late again and was relieved when Shana said she thought it would be better if they talked on the phone.

          Mary's notebook and pen were in her hand before she started brewing up the coffee. 

          She sat down at the kitchen table, and explained what she hoped the article could show people, just like she had done with Kierra.  Then she began to ask Shana the same kinds of questions she had asked Kierra.  As she slowly drew out more and more information, freely given, Mary began to form a clearer idea of who Tyson Morton had been.

          Her heart ached for the woman on the other end of the call, just as it had for Kierra Lebec.  Both women had loved their sons and had shaped their lives to support their boys and keep them safe as best they could—and both seemed so astonished that their efforts had fallen so short of the mark.  There were places in both conversations where voices broke and could not continue.  Both women pushed through those moments and found other moments that made them smile.  Mary could hear those moments in Shana's voice even over the phone connection.

          Those were the moments that made Mary's own eyes fill up, but she brushed it away and pushed it away and kept on madly scribbling notes, just as she had with Kierra, until Shana's memories and her voice slowly ebbed away.  Until she admitted reluctantly there was not much else she could say that she was willing to share with people who didn't know him.  The rest was far too personal.

          Mary understood that all too well.

          She told Shana it was probably too late to get the story in the next day's edition, but the day after should be no problem.

          "Was there anything else you wanted to add?" she asked, trying to sound as offhand as possible. 

          Shana's hesitation lasted a beat too long.

          Mary sat bolt upright, an electric impulse of anticipation ran up her spine. 

          "What I got to say ain't about Ty," Shana said, her voice holding an edge that put Mary in mind of a stray cat hanging suspiciously at the barely lit verge of a dark alley.  She knew if she moved too quickly or spoke the wrong words, Shana would bolt.

          "I probably shouldn't say nothing at all," Shana said suddenly with more force and Mary saw the imaginary cat twitch backward toward the dark.

          She put down her pen and held the phone in both hands.

          "Why don't you tell me off the record?" Mary said.  There was a silence.  She took advantage of it.  "I won't print what you tell me.  Not unless you want me to."

          Shana barked out a short laugh.  The cat hissed.  Then it ran. 

          Mary was too slow to catch it.

          She held the disconnected phone in her hand for a few more minutes, as if she could actually see her big scoop fading into the cellular ether.  Then she swept her hair back into some semblance of order.  Her notes formed themselves into an outline in her mind as she went to fetch her laptop.

          She smiled as she settled herself back at the kitchen table.  Who needed sleep when there was a story to write and another to chase down? 

 

 

          Chris Larabee woke early, his clock radio blaring out the local news and his name again.  A fast-talking woman was reading off the quick version of the day's stories.  He lay there and listened.

          "...placed on administrative leave early yesterday pending investigation into the official harassment claim filed against him on behalf of Shana Morton." 

          Her tone turned marginally sympathetic as she refreshed the whole world's memory.  "Morton is the mother of one of the teens slain during a failed convenience store robbery last month.  Agent Larabee is the supervisor of Agent John Dunne, the agent involved in the shooting.  Morton is one of the complainants in a lawsuit against Agent Dunne." 

          He idly scrolled through the channels on the downstairs TV while he drank his coffee and heard several more versions of the same story. 

          He cringed but mostly at hearing so many perfect strangers calling him Christopher.  There was a reason that most people just called him Chris. 

          He eyed the clock on the wall, finished his coffee and strolled out to the barn.

          He got there just as his hired hand pulled into the driveway.  Yosemite drove an unbelievably small pickup truck, and Chris watched with amusement as the man peeled his burly form out of the tiny cab.  Yosemite had the build of a blacksmith and the beard of a mountain man.  He knew more about horses than anyone Chris had ever met.  Even Chris's grandfather would have been handily impressed by the man's seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of the entire gamut of equine species. 

          "Mind if I work with you this morning?" Chris asked mildly as Yosemite approached, looking at him curiously.

          Close up, Yosemite was near enough Chris's height, but had a good four or five inches of width on Chris at the shoulders and a good hundred pounds around the middle to go with it.

          Yosemite smiled. 

          He was also as mild-mannered a man as Chris had ever met and could gentle down a skittish mount in no time at all.

          "You gonna get in my way?" he asked, almost sounding serious.

          Chris grinned.  "How am I supposed to learn anything if I don't pester you a little?"

          Yosemite smiled wider and nodded his head.  "True enough."

          "Besides," Chris added, "if I get out of hand, you can press harassment charges."

          Yosemite's smile faded.  "I don't believe everything I see on the news," he said. 

          "Wise man," Chris answered, clapping his palm down on one broad shoulder and steering both of them toward the barn.

          The hard labor felt good.  Even better than the three-mile run he took last night.  By the time he was done, he felt ready to get his day started. 

          He waved Yosemite out of the driveway and headed for a quick shower. 

          It was going to be a busy day.

 

 

          Cyril D'Aprix spoke as eloquently as he knew how and looked out at the gratifyingly large crowd for mid-morning.  He spoke of neighborhood problems.  He spoke of the need to band together and support each other.  He spoke of change and hard work.  He spoke of rolled-up sleeves and renewal. 

          Heads nodded.  There were calls of agreement. 

          This was his element.  This was his purpose.  This was a society that needed changing.  In his bones he knew he had been called to lead the people toward change and a better tomorrow.

          He politely told the inquiring press that this was not the forum to talk about the deplorable actions on the part of the ATF.  This was the forum to talk about plans for community action and urban renewal, neighborhood by neighborhood.

          However, if they wanted to contact his office at the west side community center, then he could possibly talk to them about the other matter later.  And he turned their attention back to the call for urban renewal and safer neighborhoods and to see how many people had turned out to show their commitment to building a better life for themselves and their children. 

          D'Aprix was proud of himself for keeping the focus on the greater good and the larger cause.  After all, Agents Dunne and Larabee were only the products and symbols of the larger problem.  Dealing with them was but one step toward the larger solution.  He could not help but notice that all the attention spawned by his recent appearances on Miles Sandford's and Leila Wallace's shows, among others, was definitely improving the numbers of people coming to hear him speak about community renewal.

          And that was good no matter how he looked at it.

 

 

          Jacob Wilder couldn't have been happier to receive the courtesy heads-up from Frank Lawford.  He had known Lawford for years, and they traded courtesies often without keeping track of who owed whom.  Still, Jacob couldn't help but feel like he owed the man a drink at the very least for this one.  This was going to be both fun and good for business. 

          There were some things Chris Larabee didn't like to do over the phone, so he made arrangements to meet Jacob Wilder face to face.  Chris had never met the man, but he came highly recommended by Frank Lawford, who had way too much on his plate, even if Chris had been willing to consider him, which he wasn't. 

          It was better not to muddy the waters and let Lawford keep his whole focus on J.D.  Lawford did express a certain amount of disappointment, however, which made Chris respect the man even more.

          He drove into Denver's busy midday traffic to meet Wilder at his office, located ironically in one of Cyril D'Aprix's very own showcase neighborhoods on the near side of the west end—a splendid example of what urban renewal could do. 

          Chris could appreciate what D'Aprix was fighting for.  After all, anyone in law enforcement knew how overall crime rates fall in well-maintained neighborhoods where residents and businesses both send a clear message that criminals aren't welcome in their midst.  It was truly amazing how even a superficial cleanup could move petty crimes onward to other neighborhoods.  The block where Wilder rented his office space had new planters outside of several of the buildings and was scrupulously devoid of graffiti.  Storefronts and restaurants that had long been neighborhood staples stood with doors open to a pleasant noon breeze.  Two old men sat gossiping in the shade of a striped awning outside a display window that advertised a barber shop that had been in business for almost 45 years.  They looked up as Chris went by with a satisfying disinterest.

          Wilder's office was on the second floor, and Chris walked straight up after being buzzed through.

 

 

          Lunch break was plenty short enough without having to spend it trying to get hold of a man who didn't seem to care much about other people—no matter what he said.

          Shana had called twice.  Both times she spoke to Gerald Gillingham's secretary.  Both times the woman promised he would call her back.  Shana informed the woman he had precisely 30 minutes in which to make that phone call, as she was at work.  The secretary was relentlessly cheerful and promised oh-so-sincerely that Gillingham would be sure to call her as soon as he returned from lunch.

          Shana called the third time just to be a pain in the ass because sometimes pains in asses got what they wanted, and maybe that woman who sat in Gillingham's outer office and smiled, whether it was appropriate to the situation or not, might get irritated enough to really ask that lawyer boss of hers to call.

          "This is Shana Morton again.  Is he back yet?" she asked.

          "No not yet," the woman's voice sang out.  "I'll be sure to have him call you," she said, exactly as if she had not said it twice before and Shana wondered whether maybe she actually didn't remember their two previous conversations.

          "Well, my lunch break is over," Shana said tartly.  "An' I have to get back to work.  You tell him that he really needs to call me today."

          She didn't actually believe he would.  No matter what lip service he paid to "the importance of her case", she knew that for Gillingham it was never about her or Ty.  It was always about the news and the money. 

          Still, no matter how slimy the man was, he was her lawyer and she wasn't the kind to simply blindside him just because she didn't like him or trust him, but a part of her insisted that if he couldn't be bothered to call her back, then he deserved what he got.  As the day went on, the voice grew until it began to drown out the other one one inside her—the one that maintained some things deserved to be said face to face.

 

 

          By late afternoon, it was done.  Wilder had an efficiency Chris admired, and while he probably had a passion for the law, Chris detected something more like glee in the speed with which Wilder moved along. 

          They shook hands, and Wilder took down Chris's cell phone and home phone numbers and promised to keep him up to speed.

 

 

          Cyril D'Aprix's executive assistant Marva was a middle-aged, heavy-set woman.  She had lost four previous jobs and her home due to health problems, bad luck, and poor choices.  D'Aprix had given her a part-time job and helped grease her way into her rent-controlled apartment.  This opportunity was her saving grace and her ladder up.  She worked hard, harder than she ever had in her life for the man who offered her a chance to win back her self-respect while she was still young enough to grab for it with both hands. 

          The last few weeks had seen both an increase in phone calls and interest in the community center and D'Aprix's action committee.  She busily linked up concerned parents and individuals with volunteer groups, made arrangements for a free legal clinic and a free shot clinic, booked several speaking engagements, and spoke with Miles Sandford's production assistant again—the fact that the man's voice was nearly as smooth as Miles's own never failed to thrill her.  She took down the information for another nightly news round table, and fielded a phone call from Washington D.C. 

          All the while, she tried not to think too hard about where this flurry of new business and notoriety had begun.  She concentrated only on what it meant for the community she served and for D'Aprix's life's work.

          D'Aprix arrived back at the office shortly after lunch.  He sorted through his messages and talked excitedly about the calls from Miles Sandford and from Washington D.C.  His eyes lit up when he mentioned that a camera crew from CNN had been there when he gave his speech this morning.  She watched him with eyes that mirrored the brightness in his.  If he was excited, so was she.  She believed in him all the more because he had believed in her.

          They both turned to see a nervous looking man, standing in the doorway, shifting from foot to foot.  On closer inspection, he hardly looked older than eighteen.  He was skinny, dressed in neat khakis and sneakers with a hoodie over a collared shirt.  He licked nervous lips and offered up an "excuse me," in a voice that very nearly cracked.

          Cyril squinted at him for a moment before grinning broadly.  "That you Darius?"

          Marva kept her eyes on the boy.  "Yes sir," he said, now eyeing the floor unhappily. 

          "Your mama told me about the internship you received," D'Aprix continued, seeming not to notice the way the boy wouldn’t look at him.

          "Yeah," Darius answered, more of a quick exhale than a spoken word.  He looked up.  "Thank you for writing that letter," he said, and the look on his face was almost painful to behold.

          Cyril finally seemed to notice, too.  Marva could see it in the way the smile faded from his eyes.  But he didn't let it fade from his face or his voice.  "What brings you here today, son?"

          The boy's weight moved nervously from one sneakered foot to the other.  He reached into his bag and pulled out a folded sheaf of papers, colored a blue that was hard not to recognize.

          Marva saw both the recognition and surprise in Cyril's eyes.  He looked back up at the boy.

          "I'm sorry, Mr. D'Aprix," Darius said breathily.  A moment later, he transformed himself from nervous teenager to a tall young man, standing erect in the doorway of the office.  He schooled his face, even his large brown eyes and held the paper out in front of him. 

          "These are official court documents to be delivered to Mr. Cyril D'Aprix."  He said the words in a voice that did not seem to belong to him.  And he waited there wearing a face that wasn't really his own.

          D'Aprix stepped forward and took the papers from the youth's hand with gentle dignity.  "Not your fault, son," he said quietly.  "You're just doing your job."

          "Yes, sir," Darius answered.  He looked as if he wanted to say something else, but instead he disappeared out the door in a hurry.

          D'Aprix shook his head at the irony.  "I got that boy that job," he told Marva. 

          She didn't answer.  There was nothing to say.

          He opened the blue papers.  It wasn't the first time he'd been called into court for one matter or another.  She waited, covering her curiosity by shuffling through the papers on her desk.

          The silence made her look up, and she didn't like the look on his face.

          He covered his expression immediately, but he tripped over his words as he told her, "I'll be in my office for a little while.  Hold my calls and no visitors."

          That turned out to be unfortunate.  She had to take messages from reporters and other news people all afternoon.

 

 

          "Your messages," Bernadette said brightly, handing Gerald Gillingham a stack of square pink papers.  Her nails looked freshly done.

          "Nice nails," Gillingham said, giving her a blindingly bright smile.  "Did you do those on my billable hours?"

          She gave him a brilliant smile back.  "You're lucky I'm so professional."

          He smiled.  "Luck has nothing to do with it," he purred.  "If you weren't a pro, you wouldn't be working in my office."

          She smiled cheekily before going on with the messages.  "Shana Morton and Cyril D'Aprix both called repeatedly and insist you call them back."

          Gillingham tried not to roll his eyes at the thought of D'Aprix.  He failed.

          "Call D'Aprix first," Bernadette suggested.  And certainly, he had left the bigger stack of messages.

          "What's so urgent, Cyril?" Gillingham crooned into his phone as he shut his office door with the toe of one very expensive shoe.

          "I told your secretary I wanted to meet with you in person," Cyril answered.  The tone of his voice indicated he was upset.

          "Did you set up a time?" Gillingham asked reasonably.

          "Don't play games with me," D'Aprix snapped. 

          Something had certainly ruffled the little rooster's feathers.

          "Why don't you tell me what's got you all upset and I'll—" 

          He was interrupted by the simultaneous sound of someone pounding on his office door and Bernadette ineffectually shouting out "You can't go in there."

          Gillingham swore out loud and opened the door, ignoring the distant squawking on the other side of the phone.

          The acid dressing down that he had prepared to vent upon the unlucky head of his unexpected visitor died at the sight of the blue folded papers.

          "Are you Gerald Gillingham?" demanded a broad-shouldered, heavy-lidded man with skin like aged and yellowing paper.

          "If I'm not, then I've broken into his office and stolen his phone," Gillingham retorted waving the phone contemptuously at the man.  Cyril's voice had gone silent.

          "Are you Gerald Gillingham?" the man asked again in exactly the same tone as before.  Apparently, you didn't have to be smart to work for the courts anymore. 

          "Yes, I am," Gillingham snapped.  "Just give me the papers and get out."

          "You've been served notice," the man answered, unimpressed.  He turned and clomped off in big, booted feet.  He didn't even close the door behind him.

          "Cyril, I'll call you back," Gillingham said and hung up in the middle of whatever reply D'Aprix had attempted to make.

          As he unfolded the papers, Bernadette watched his bored contempt change to an ugly expression she had seen before.  She watched his lips curl up in a nasty feral smile and hoped whoever was on the other end of those official blue court papers was prepared for a dirty little fight they would probably lose. 

          She knew her boss, after all.

 

 

          Cyril paced impatiently in his tiny office and waited for Gillingham to call him back.  Four steps in one direction, turn, and precisely four steps back the other way, each step accompanied by the staccato rhythm of unkind thoughts about Gillingham's general character, his smug self-confidence, his arrogance, and his indelible belief that he could win any case whether his client was in the right or in the wrong.  

          To D'Aprix, winning this case meant opening up a whole new chapter in discussing basic human and civil rights for the neighborhoods under the wing of the community action leagues. 

          Not that D'Aprix liked Gillingham.  There was very little about him that could be considered likable.  But they needed him.  They needed his slick words and legal legerdemain.  They needed his gleaming white smiles, and his good looks and his ability to charm the press and the masses alike.  They needed him to play the role of a disinterested wealthy white man to look down from his uninvolved status and point out glibly that conditions needed to be changed. 

          Of course, that wasn't exactly how Gillingham saw his role, but that didn't matter.  Sound bytes and media clips and after-the-fact discussions of the case could be played to their advantage. 

          It was pretty simple really.  Cyril had done his job massaging public sympathies and demonstrating all the complicated ways injustice and a flawed and racist society had contributed to this tragedy.  All Gillingham needed to do was win one little lawsuit, and the easiest of the three lawsuits to boot.  Shana Morton's suit ought to be a signed, sealed, sold, delivered, cut, dried, slam dunk.  What was so hard about that?

          He took a deep breath.  This countersuit in his hand for defamation of character was surely meant to be a distraction.  D'Aprix told himself it was ludicrous.  Clearly, Agent Larabee was grasping at straws.  It was the last desperate act of a man who knew he had been caught in the wrong and wanted to save a career that was slipping away before his eyes.  It had to be.  Didn't it?

          For her part, Marva watched Cyril pace agitatedly on the other side of his office door and willed the phone to ring.

          When it finally did, Cyril stopped dead in mid-step and turned spotlight eyes on her while she answered it.  She called out Mr. Gillingham's name hurriedly.  Cyril snatched up the phone and closed the door.  He usually said "thank you."  This time he didn't even remember.

          Gillingham's tone was as smooth as ever.  "There's nothing to get excited about, Cyril."

          Cyril rolled his eyes at the very idea Gillingham thought he was just one of the many clients in his thrall able to be soothed with mere words from the wise and all-powerful Gerald Gillingham.

          Gillingham must have sensed that his words did not have precisely their desired effect because he continued, and managed to sound only the tiniest bit patronizing as he said, "The man's been fairly caught doing wrong and he knows it.  This is his best effort at defending himself."

          It was exactly what D'Aprix had thought, but he wasn't ready to start agreeing with Gillingham yet, so he didn't answer.

          "It's exactly what I figured Larabee would do," Gillingham said smugly.  "Completely predictable these aggressive, ex-military, law-enforcement types.  They mistakenly cling to the false conviction that the best defense is a good offense.  And when outmaneuvered, outgunned and hopelessly surrounded, like now, you can expect them to attack in a misguided attempt to inflict as much damage as possible to their adversary—us—before being inevitably destroyed by said adversary's superior weapons and strategy."

          Cyril managed not to sniff disdainfully at that, at least not into the phone where Gillinghman might hear him.  _Us,_ he thought.  _So now it's ”us".  You and me, buddy.  We're in this together._

          What he really wanted to say was "What do you mean _we_ , white man?"  But he didn't because all Gillingham had to do to get out of this mess was to drop the charges.  D'Aprix's situation was a little stickier than that, and he might need the white man after all.

          "Listen, Gerald," he said into the phone and tried not to let his voice reveal either his concern or his contempt.  "Make sure you have him dead to rights."

          "Completely," Gillingham assured him.  "Between your evidence and mine, there's little he can say to defend his actions."

          "You better be sure," D'Aprix said, "because if we get to court on this, all I can really say is that I caught him standing in a cemetery.  And you damn well know that Jacob Wilder is a good attorney."

          It burned a bit more to remember where Wilder was renting his offices.  When D'Aprix thought about the pro bono cases Wilder had worked on with him right here in the west side, it felt a little bit like betrayal, actually.

          "Sure he's good," Gillingham replied.  "But I'm better."

          And D'Aprix could almost predict his words even as he said them.

          "And don't underestimate our star witness," Gillingham chided him.  "We have the poor woman he harassed on our side.  So no problem."

          "All right, then," D'Aprix said.  "I'll speak to my attorney."

          "You don't need to," Gillingham said.  "As soon as I win my suit, the suit against you will be null and void.  There's no way to lose here."

          When D'Aprix didn't answer right away, he added, "If it makes you feel better, we can call Mrs. Morton and ask her to come in for a meeting to go over our evidence and subsequent strategy."

          D'Aprix hummed out a noise of consideration.  He had a very busy schedule today, and already Gillingham and this damn lawsuit had taken too much time out of it.  But he supposed this was important.  It would be hard to achieve his mission with damaged credibility.

          "What time?" D'Aprix asked, pulling open his door and stabbing his finger through the air at the appointment calendar on Marva's desk.  It took her a second or two, but she finally figured it out, knocking over the paper clip holders and scattering pens on the floor as she grabbed up the calendar and hurriedly maneuvered her wide hips out from the confined space behind her desk.  She was at his side in three hasty steps and holding the calendar so he could see it.

          "No, not one," he was saying into the phone.  "I have a break at four-thirty or so.  Fine.  No.  I could do six.  Five thirty is tough, but I could probably get there by five forty-five." 

          He rolled his eyes for Marva's benefit, and she put a hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle.  He liked her giggle.  It was high and girlish, unexpected in someone her age and size and who had seen so many hard times in her life.  She needed to giggle more often.

          "Five forty-five," Cyril confirmed and Marva wrote it down quickly.  "Call me if anything changes," he said sternly.  "I don't like to aggravate aldermen by leaving early if I don't have to."

          He seemed satisfied with whatever assurances he received on the other end and clicked off.

          He looked at Marva with a rueful smile.  "So much for dinner," he said.

          She frowned.  "You got to eat."  She thought for a moment.  "Let me go out and get you something."

          He seemed to consider that.  "That's probably a good idea," he said.  "But I don’t want to put you out.  You deserve your time off as much as anyone," he said.

          She let out a hiss of air to show how ridiculous she found the thought that he was imposing in any way.  Not after all he had done for her.  "I know just the place," she said.  "Best fried chicken in the whole state," she said lowering her voice almost seductively to add, "and sweet potato pie."

          "Well, then," Cyril said, smiling himself.  "I guess you've sold me."

          He pulled out his wallet and handed her some money. 

          She refused it, at least until she knew how much it would be, but he said, "Picking up my dinner is going to extend your work day.  Take the money now.  You can bring me any change from the food and your gas tomorrow.  And," he said with mock severity.  "Don't fill out your time card until you get back."

          She gave him her best smile of appreciation.

          Anyone who had the audacity to sue such a truly decent man surely deserved to be put down and put down hard.  She hoped Cyril and that lawyer gave it to him good.

          But for now, she had work to do, so she put away her indignation and the calendar both and went back to diligently carrying out the responsibilities Cyril had entrusted to her.  She did look forward to going up to Ruby Dee's this evening, though.  She even had enough saved of this week's money to afford a little dinner and pie for herself tonight, too.

 

 

          "Shana!"

          At the aggravated-sounding shout, Shana looked up from the stack of boxes she was scanning into inventory.  Randy Cary, her boss, was coming across the loading docks, waving a phone in his hand.  He looked aggravated, too, but that was nothing new.  He looked aggravated five days out of seven as far as she could tell.  She hoped he looked different on his days off.  Otherwise she felt sorry for the man's wife.

          She tucked her scanner into its holster on her shop apron and watched him approach.

          He was a big man.  She could well imagine that he had been a big shot football player in high school.  He still had big, broad shoulders and a barrel chest, but over the passing years, most of the rest of his bulk seemed to have found its way to his middle and stayed put.  She could see the sweat on his forehead even at that distance.  He was always sweating.  She felt bad for him in the summer.

          "Phone," he said needlessly, stopping in front of her and looking even more aggravated.  But he didn't hand her the phone.  Instead he said, "I wouldn't even bring this to you but it's your lawyer.  So I'm cutting you some slack.  'Cause I know it's been hard."

          He was all heart, really.  She didn't let the thought show on her face because really, as bosses go, Randy wasn't all that bad.  Just annoying.  And sometimes picked all the wrong times and places to try to enforce the rules of his petty kingdom.

          "I appreciate it," she said, and held out her hand for the phone.  Not that she was much happier than her boss.  Gillingham couldn't call her back when she was available.  Now she had to endure a scolding from Cary.

          She had work to do.  A lot of it, in fact.

          "I told you that your lunch break was the time for personal calls," Randy said, still not giving her the phone.  She hoped the delay was pissing Gillingham off. "Make all the personal calls you want on your lunch break," he said. "Not on my time." 

          She looked from the phone to Randy.  "He's calling me," she said reasonably.

          Randy narrowed his eyes.  He didn't put up with being sassed, and she could tell he wasn't really certain whether she was sassing him or not.  He looked at her like that a lot.

          "He says he's returning your call," Randy pointed out.

          "Which I made on my lunch break," Shana answered.

          Randy finally handed over the phone.  "Just keep it short," he ordered.  "Or tell him you'll call back on your break."

          He turned and stalked away, calling back.  "I'll expect you to return that phone shortly."

          She made a sour face at his back before speaking into the phone.

          Gillingham was not used to being made to wait.  And he wasn't good at it, spending the entire time he was on hold wondering just how hard it could be to find one woman on a warehouse loading dock.  When Shana Morton finally did come on the line, her sharp "I'm at work," were not the words he expected.

          "We'll make it short, then," he said pleasantly.

          "Well, I'm at work," she repeated.  "And when I'm at work, I work."

          He took a breath.  "I'm simply returning your call," he said in what he hoped was a patient tone.

          "I told your secretary when I would be available," Shana replied, and she really didn't sound happy to be speaking with him.  "Now is not one of those times."

          "Shana…," he said calmly.  "How about we schedule a time when we can both talk face to face."

          "Fine," she snapped.  There was a beeping sound followed by the sound of heavy machinery.

          "How does five forty-five sound?" he asked as the sound grew louder.

          Shana's muffled voice called out, "Section C12".  Talking to someone else, evidently.

          Then her voice sounded in his ear.  "I'm working until seven."

          "This is important," Gillingham urged.

          "So is my job," she replied and he knew there was no budging her. 

          "Fine. Seven o'clock will do.  At my office."

          "I'm working _until_ seven," she repeated for him as if he were a rather stupid child.  "So if you want to meet anywhere but on this loading dock, you're going to have to wait until at least seven thirty."

          "Seven thirty will be fine," he said coldly and hoped his tone carried clearly.  She was his client, after all.  Pro bono even. He was doing her an enormous favor. 

          "Fine," she said.  There was another loud beeping sound and then the call ended.

          He glared hard at the phone. 

          Then he dialed Cyril to tell him the good news that he wouldn't have to offend the aldermen after all and could probably stay for the entire meeting, whatever they were meeting about.

          He turned his attention back to the blue papers on his desk and read them carefully one more time.  Filing false allegations and defamation of character.  Just who did this ATF agent think he was dealing with? 

          This wasn't even going to be a challenge.

 

 

          Cyril D'Aprix and Gerald Gillingham waited with thinly disguised mutual disdain.  They weren't exactly cut of the same cloth, an opinion which neither would have hesitated to raise, except at the moment, circumstances had thrown them together and they had mutual use for each other.  Thus they waited for the third person in their triangle of opportunity and tragedy, Gillingham checking his watch repeatedly, and Cyril going over his calendar for tomorrow.  D'Aprix had a grease spot on the lapel of his jacket, which bothered his companion to no end, but Gillingham preferred not to bring it up.

          It was nearly 7:45 before Shana showed up.

          Gillingham's secretary, in an obvious hurry to leave for the evening, buzzed the client through and then put on her coat.

          D'Aprix and Gillingham had pulled up a chair for Shana before she even made it in the office door.  Gillingham took her jacket in a show of chivalry and folded it neatly on the sofa by the door.  Shana perched warily in the armchair drawn up to face the two men in a sort of lopsided triangle.

          "Thank you for coming out so late," D'Aprix said, and Gillingham tried to look in sincere agreement instead of annoyed that D'Aprix had said it first.

          Shana nodded, which Gillingham decided was as close to "You're welcome" as they were going to get.

          He breezed right to the point.  These were billable hours he was spending and this client wasn't paying out of pocket, so there was no point wasting time on niceties.

          "We just need to go over your statements in the harassment suit," he said pleasantly in a tone usually reserved for "just sign here, and here, and also here."

          She looked from one man to another, and her eyes narrowed in something like confusion.

          "I don't want you to be particularly concerned about this," D'Aprix said soothingly.  He reached a hand toward her arm, but thought better of it as she turned a stony face his way.  His hand reversed course and landed in his own lap, as if that had been its destination all along.

          "It's nothing for you to be concerned about at all," Gillingham said with a deprecating little chuckle and shot D'Aprix a look that plainly asked what he thought he was doing and reminded him whose office this was and therefore who got to be in charge of the conversation.

          D'Aprix sat back a little farther in his chair.

          "In fact, it's a typical tactic and to be expected," Gillingham continued.  "I've seen it a hundred times."

          Shana now looked at Gillingham, dark eyes still narrowed, still trying to figure out what he was talking about.

          "Agent Larabee has launched a countersuit," Gillingham explained.  "Pretty petty stuff, actually.  False allegations and defamation of character."  He waved a hand in the air as if the suit was so much smoke he could disperse into empty space. 

          "As I explained before, countersuits are a favorite tactic of the defendant.  It's a ludicrous attempt to make it appear as if the plaintiff bears some of the fault.  You remember that, right?"  They had, after all, discussed that very topic when Dunne's lawyer launched his countersuit. 

          She looked at him incredulously, and her voice held a certain shock.  "Agent Larabee is suing me?"

          "As with Agent Dunne, a countersuit was expected," he said confidently.  "And just as with Agent Dunne's countersuit, there's nothing for you to worry about."

          She looked from one man to the other.  Her voice rose another uneasy notch.  "If there's nothing to worry about, then why did you need me to come all the way out here at nearly eight o'clock at night?"

          Clearly this was still some kind of sore point. 

          "Mrs. Morton," D'Aprix said soothingly.  "If it helps, he's not suing you.  He's suing your attorney, and," he chuckled a little, "if you can believe it, me."

          Her eyes betrayed clear confusion now.  She shook her head as if to clear it, pointed a long finger at him and repeated the words back to him.  "Agent Larabee is suing you?"  She turned the finger on Gillingham.  "And you?"

          "That's correct," Gillingham replied, taking the reins of the conversation.  "And we brought you here to assure you that everything is under control."

          "We didn't want you to worry when you heard the news," D'Aprix added, ignoring Gillingham's warning glower.

          "Why would I worry if he's suing you?" she asked.

          "Mrs. Morton," Gillingham said, trying unsuccessfully to suppress his sigh of impatience.  "I filed the harassment charges on your behalf.  It's entirely possible that you could still be named in the countersuit."

          "I didn't ask you to file no harassment charges," she returned a little too loudly.  Gillingham supposed the thought of being sued yet again would be enough to rattle her. 

          "As I said, it's all under control," he repeated, trying for one of his famous supremely confident smiles.

          Shana looked hard at him.  "Why did you file charges?" she asked.  "Who asked you to file charges?  Just drop them and make the lawsuit go away."

          "It isn't really that simple," Gillingham said as patiently as he could manage.

          "Yes it is," Shana insisted.  "Just drop the charges."

          "Mrs. Morton," D'Aprix interrupted.  "You can't let a man intimidate you just because he is a federal agent.  His position as a sworn representative of the law is precisely the reason that this attempt to intimidate you is such an egregious abuse of power."

          She actually glared at him.

          "Don't you dare attempt to snow me with some fancy words and sermons," she snapped.  "I don't know what the two of you are trying to do, but you need to tell whoever you told to file charges that you want to un-file those charges."

          "Out of the question," D'Aprix said indignantly.

          "You're giving Agent Larabee's suit and his lawyer far too much credit," Gillingham interceded calmly.  "Once we have your testimony and report filed with the ATF, there isn't a whole lot he can say." 

          She opened her mouth to speak, but he continued right over her.  "All we need to do tonight is simply set down an official statement about what happened right outside my office the day you gave your deposition."

          She stared at Gillingham in utter bewilderment and shook her head. 

          She knew she shouldn't have let it go this far.  She had believed that it would blow over.  That she had other things to worry about and that surely the man could take care of it himself.  But here it was, laid at her doorstep to do what she should have done the very moment Gillingham and D'Aprix got on the radio and started talking about harassment. 

          "Nothing happened," she said firmly.

          "Shana, it's all right," D'Aprix cut in.  "You have nothing to be ashamed about.  Absolutely nothing at all."

          Her lips curled up in a bitter smile.  Once again, she spoke in this office, and no one listened.  No one heard.  There was a time that she had thought better of Cyril D'Aprix.  Kierra still did.  Shana was glad she wasn't here.

          "I know I have nothing to be ashamed of," Shana retorted, looking Gillingham and D'Aprix each in the eye and trying not to ask them if they could say the same. 

          Gillingham and D'Aprix looked at her expectantly and encouragingly, and Shana hoped maybe they might finally be ready to listen. 

          She spelled it out for them in words she thought they could understand. "I am telling you he didn't say anything to me.  He didn't do anything to me.  He didn't try to intimidate me or harass me or threaten me or do anything else that might be an egregious abuse of his power."

          D'Aprix flinched as she threw his words back at him.

          The two men looked at each other and then back at her, both of them plainly confused, and maybe something else.  Something curling around the edges of their careful confidence, like mildew creeps into the bathroom tiles.  She couldn't help the sardonic thought that maybe there was something to worry about after all.

          Gillingham recovered first, but some of the arrogance had leached out of his tone.  "I saw him approach you.  And stand over you."  Now he sounded like he was trying to convince her what had happened to her very own self while he was ten or twelve feet away and couldn't see a damn thing.

          "Perhaps," D'Aprix said, and Shana noticed that he sounded a lot less self-righteous now, too.  He stumbled on his words and tried again.  "Perhaps your forgiving nature has got the better of you."

          She didn't even know how to respond to a line of bullshit like that.

          She told them again, using simpler terms.  "The man stood right in front of me.  He didn't say nothing.  He didn't do nothing.  All he did was stand there and look at me."

          Gillingham seized on that immediately.  "Stood there and looked at you like what?"

          "Like he had something he wanted to say," she answered. 

          "I imagine he had quite a lot he wanted to say," Gillingham returned acidly.

          "He didn't say nothing," Shana said, speaking more slowly so maybe these overeducated men could finally understand, "He gave me his business card and walked away."

          Gillingham and D'Aprix looked at each other in a way that made Shana certain she should have kept that little piece of information to herself.

          "Shana," D'Aprix said, and Shana was pretty sure he meant his tone to be kind, "Maybe you just don't see.  When a police officer gives you their card, they are asking you to call them if you remember any information that they can use.  Agent Larabee is treating you like a mere witness to this tragedy.  It adds insult to injury in the worst possible way.  This man has treated you in the most callous and insensitive manner imaginable and you have a right to be angry."

          She was angry all right, but not at Agent Larabee. 

          "If you want to get sued, you go right ahead," she said snapped at both of them.  "I'm telling you he didn't do nothing.  And there wasn't nothing about him that said to me that he was trying to intimidate me.  An' if he did mean to harass me, then he ain't got not talent at it at all.  Now I've got to get home."

          And she meant it.  She didn't want her mother cooking dinner for her again. And she had a sneaking suspicion the woman wasn't taking her meds regular because she didn't want Shana to have to pay for more of them, which was stupid because if they were covered in Alabama, they ought to still be covered in Colorado.

          "Okay, okay," Gillingham said, palms out.  The first simply understandable statement she had heard the man make since, _My name is Gerald Gillingham.  I'm an experienced lawyer and I'd like to help you._   Words that she had long since come to regret.

          He looked at D'Aprix before turning back to her.  "In light of this new evidence," he said, smiling weakly, like that was some kind of law joke, and not all that funny either, "let Cyril and I look at our best strategies to deal with the countersuit.  You just go home.  Don't worry about a thing.  Do what you need to do.  We'll take care of things here."

          She got up out of the chair and Gillingham went ahead of her to get her coat.  He held it out for her to put on.  

          "Just keep the information you gave us to yourself," he said, and there was a definite note of warning in his voice.  "We don't want to risk it damaging our primary suit against the man who killed your son.  Right?"

          Her throat went dry.  She simply nodded.

          "Good girl."  Gillingham used his soft voice, the one he used when he first asked her to tell him her story, before she had come to see him for what he was.

          She took a deep breath through her nose, but it did nothing to loosen her voice.  She nodded again, agreeing to what she didn't know really.  And not sure that she did agree.  She just needed to leave.  To get home.  And more to the point to get out of the presence of both these men.

          "Would you like me to walk you to your car?" D'Aprix offered politely.

          She shook her head no. 

          Gillingham opened the door for her. 

          "One more thing," he said, as she tried to hurry through it.  "I'll need you to bring me that business card."

          "I don't have it," she said hurriedly.  "I threw it away."  The words surprised even Shana, and she turned away quickly, so Gillingham wouldn't see her confusion.  She had never been good at lying and she wondered where it suddenly came to her so easily.  Not to mention just why she would even care so much about the man's business card.  The answer came to her before she could push the whole question away.  Same answer as before.  Because he knew. 

          And what he knew was all up in his eyes. 

          She pulled her jacket tighter to stop a sudden shiver and walked hurriedly out into the hall.

          "Drive safe," D'Aprix called after her as Gillingham reminded her not to talk to anyone about the information they had just discussed.

          Her vision blurred as she went out the glass doors, and she brushed impatiently at her eyes with the back of her hand.  She couldn’t understand why she was tearing up.  Why now? 

          She clenched her jaw and blinked rapidly.  She was not going to cry.  Not for no reason.  And not in front of this building.  She was going to get in her car and drive home.

          She had a life to live.  And Gillingham and D'Aprix could damn well take care of their own selves without her help.

          At least that was what she had planned.

 

 


	13. Chapter 13

          It was easy to spot Team Seven in the Saloon, as they occupied their usual place.  But in the event that they had decided to be sneaky and crowd themselves into some other booth, Chris was sure he could have found them just by the amount of noise they were making.

          It seemed like the post-bust, self-congratulatory victory party was well underway without need of waiting for him to arrive.  No matter.  He waved a greeting to Inez at the bar and asked a passing server to bring him a beer, and then he sauntered over to the table and shoved Buck over with one hip and not so much as a how do you do.

          The boys made a motion to rise and let him into his usual spot, but he declined, perching as far onto the bench as Buck would let him, as Buck was currently all flailing elbows in the middle of some story that had both Vin and Nathan crying foul.

          Chris looked at J.D. and when Buck paused for breath, he pointed his newly arrived beer at J.D.'s face and said, "Nice shiner."

          J.D. grimaced, which gave Chris to know that the kid would rather nobody had noticed.

          Buck, totally derailed in his other story, didn't seem to mind, transitioning smoothly to this new tangent.  "Ask him how he got it," he said, grinning.

          "Shut up, Buck," J.D. growled, and the tops of his cheeks turned pink.

          Chris said nothing, knowing if he waited long enough, Buck would happily supply the information himself.

          It took just long enough for Chris to take the first sip of his beer before Buck started in.

          Predictably, J.D. interrupted.  Somehow the kid still seemed to think it was better to tell embarrassing stories himself instead of just letting Buck get it out of his system.  Chris figured he'd learn eventually.

          "I banged my head, all right?  I was in a hurry, and I wasn't paying attention and I banged my head," J.D. snapped.

          "Banged your face," Vin corrected.

          Chris grinned behind his bottle.

          "Hit it on the control console," Buck put in helpfully.

          Chris winced in sympathy, as J.D.'s cheeks got redder.

          "Reaching for the Twinkies," Buck added.

          "I was not," J.D. snapped, rather loudly.  "I was taping the cords under the console."

          "Oh," Chris answered. 

          "So no one would trip and get hurt," J.D. protested.

          "Well, good job then," Ezra put in, raising his own imported bottle in the direction of J.D.'s eye.

          Chris could see that J.D. was winding up to defend himself against this whole new front.  "All right, all right," Chris interceded calmly.  He raised his beer.  "Here's to a successful bust.  Nice job," he said.  "Bad guys in jail and no one got hurt."  He glanced at J.D.  "Shiners notwithstanding."

          They all drank.

          J.D. wiped the foam off his lip.  "Besides," he continued confidently.  "It makes me look tough."

          "A little bitty spot like that?"  Buck scoffed heartily to a chorus of agreement.  "That ain't even hardly a bruise.  It's more like you forgot to wash.  And," he added before J.D. could even speak.  "you're gonna need a better story than 'I hit my face on a communications console playing Safety Patrol' if you want to look tough."

          J.D. was still protesting when Buck turned to Chris. 

          "So, Stud," he grinned.  "What did you do with your day off?"  He reached over Chris's shoulder and plucked a piece of hay out from under the collar of Chris's golf shirt.

          "Not much," Chris said with a certain amount of self-satisfaction.

          "Now, now," Josiah chided gently.  "You mean you didn't spend your imposed time-off doing penance and contemplating the error of your ways."

          Chris grinned back. 

          "Hot tub and horses is more like it," Buck said.

          Chris shook his head.  That was Buck for you. 

          It wasn't like he hadn't spoken with Buck half a dozen times today over this or that piece of paperwork or procedure.  And it was Buck who had had the job of calling him as soon as the bust was completed to give him a status report and, more importantly, to let him know that everyone was all right.  Shiners notwithstanding.  That's how he knew what time to show up at the Saloon, more or less.  They seemed to have finished their paperwork a little quickly, but then, Chris considered with a shrug, since Buck was in charge this week, any problems with the reports were going to be Buck's problem. 

          Vin was looking at him thoughtfully.  "You look like you been up to something," he pronounced, and now Ezra was looking at him the same way.

          "Me?" Chris asked, trying to sound shocked and failing utterly.  He didn't even bother to hide his smirk.

          Now they were all looking at him.

          "Spill it," Buck ordered.

          Chris sipped his beer.  "Nothing to tell," he said.

          J.D. looked disappointed.  "Come on," he urged.  "I told you about my face."

          Buck rolled his eyes. 

          "You should have let Buck tell it," Nathan said.  "It would have been a better story."

          There was no denying that, Chris thought.  Buck looked predictably smug.

          "Still nothing to tell," Chris answered J.D.

          Vin's eyes stayed narrowed and thoughtful.

          "This another one of those 'nothings' that's gonna make the papers?"  Nathan asked. 

          They all turned to stare at Jackson, and from the look on his face, he hadn't quite intended the words to be out loud.

          "How many beers you had there, Nathan?" Vin asked sardonically.

          "All right," Nathan groused.  "Maybe that was a little blunt."

          "A little?" Ezra asked.

          "A little," Nathan repeated.  "Still." He looked at Chris.  "Tell me you stayed out of trouble."

          "What?  All day?" Buck asked in disbelief.

          "That _is_ asking a lot," Josiah agreed.

          Nathan was still waiting for an answer.  And six pairs of eyes were still looking at Chris.

          "I didn't do anything," Chris affirmed calmly, in what was rapidly becoming his standard disclaimer.  The others groaned, but Chris made no effort to stop the wide smirk that spread across his face. 

 

 

          Dinner was cold and on a plate in the refrigerator with a note, and suddenly Shana was transported backward to a time when there wasn't quite so much to tear at her, and much of what should have barely entered her consciousness, when poverty could be beaten back at the door with a white plate, loaded with cold dinner, covered with a clean dishtowel, and a torn paper neatly lettered "Love, Mama" sitting on top.  It hit her hard right in the middle of the chest, and she sucked air hard and wiped her eyes on her sleeve.  Angry at herself, she shoved the plate into the microwave and remembered just in time not to bang the door because "Love, Mama" meant that mama was already in bed.

          She sat down at the little kitchen table to collect herself, to clear her mind, and forget the things she ought to be thinking about while she waited three minutes for dinner to either be lukewarm or scalding hot.  She would probably just eat it either way.

          The microwave dinged.  She was right both ways.  The corn was hot enough to burn her hand right through the plate.  The potatoes were almost cold.  The leftover chicken was just about right, though, so she tackled a piece of that with her fingers as she took her plate into the living room.

          The news was on.  And on.  And on.  She kept flipping channels until she found some shopping network full of useless junk that some blond girl with pretty nails was trying really hard to sell using her charm and bosoms alone.

          Shana sighed hard and tried to concentrate on her food.

          She had found an old rerun of some show she hadn't thought about in years—and probably wouldn't think about again after tonight—and had just settled in beside her empty plate when the phone rang.

          She leaped for it and hoped her mother hadn't woken up.  Who would be calling at this time of night?

          "Hello?" she answered and tried to sound vaguely hostile in the event it was a telemarketer, or worse, some reporter.

          It was, in fact, some reporter, but Shana's surprise was greater than her irritation.

          "It's Mary Travis," the voice said crisply, and Shana could just picture the woman's shiny yellow hair and those big aqua eyes.  "I'm sorry to call so late."

          "That's okay," Shana lied and wondered why she bothered.  But then, she supposed it wasn't really all that late by standards of people who weren't either too old or too young.

          She sighed.  "Can I help you with something?" she asked and knew every bit of her fatigue and frustration shone right through her words.  What could this woman possibly want from her tonight?

          "Actually," Mary replied, "I have something for you.  If you want it, that is."

          Shana frowned and turned down the volume on the TV.

          The other woman continued.  "The article about Tyson is finished.  I thought you might like to see it, to have a copy, tonight, before it runs tomorrow."

          It took Shana a moment to force out some words and when she did, only a breath of "Oh" came out. 

          Her throat tightened up all over again.  She sat up.  She stood up.  She breathed in hard.

          "Are you okay?" Mary's voice came across the earpiece.

          "I…" Shana started, and stopped again long enough to kick herself and demand that she pull herself together and stop sounding like an idiot in front of this reporter woman.  "Thank you," she said, making her voice sound normal, and courteous, and in control.  "That was thoughtful of you."

          And in saying the words, Shana realized that it was.  Unexpectedly.

          "I can bring it over tonight if you like," Mary offered.  "If it's not too late."

          Shana's heart thudded slow and hard in her chest.  "I would like to see it," Shana answered, afraid suddenly that if she didn't say the words now, the chance would disappear through her fingers.  Because she really did want to see the article.  Right now she wanted to see her words more than anything, to remember again, to see Ty brought to life, alive in memories printed out, never to be taken back.  Where others would remember him, too, even people who didn't know him, all adding strength to the fragile image, as if all their combined wishes and memories could make him solid again.

          Shana wanted to read that article. 

          But not here in their apartment with his empty room just down the hall.

          She couldn't read it here.

          "Could I meet you somewhere instead?" she asked, her voice suddenly small because her mother was sleeping right through the chance that Mary was offering, and although she would simply tell her mother later that "I didn't want to wake you," the truth was this was something Shana didn't want to share.

          Mary seemed to be thinking it over, and Shana remembered the Travis woman would probably have to get a babysitter.

          She knew she ought to offer some other solution now, to say it was all right.  But Mary's voice interrupted her, the words flooding her with relief, as Mary suggested a café not far from downtown. 

          "I'll buy the coffee," Mary said with a little laugh.

          Shana held her tongue.  If Mary Travis wanted to buy overpriced coffee, then Shana could let her.

          Shana voiced her agreement and was about to hang up, when Mary added, her voice suddenly both soft and hopeful, "I hope you like it."

          Shana only answered "I'll meet you there."

          She tried not to wonder as she hung up the phone and retrieved her discarded jacket, what if she didn't like it.  What if her words were flat?  What if she failed to show her boy the way he was?  What if she just couldn't make Mary understand?  Was it even possible anyway?

          She turned the car radio up way too loud and drove downtown, trying hard to obey the speed limits, and yet not wanting to get there first. 

          As it was, it took her a little while to find a parking spot.  The café was crowded, but Mary Travis was holding down a small table over by the wall.  She waved as soon as she saw Shana come in, and Shana took a deep breath and made her way across the floor toward the empty chair that awaited her.

          "Thank you for coming out," Mary said, as soon as Shana took her seat.  "I meant what I said about the coffee.  Do you want one?"

          Shana shook her head.  Her hands gripped the edge of chair.  She pried one of them from the chair and set in her lap.  The palm was damp, and her fingers couldn't seem to stop fiddling with the thick cotton of her pants. 

          Mary pushed aside her own large coffee and reached into an enormous tote bag hanging from the back of her chair.  She pulled out what looked like a newspaper page, only smaller, and on thicker paper.  She folded it back and slid it across the table toward Shana, so she could read the story at the bottom of the page. 

          Shana sucked in a breath and looked at Ty's beautiful face looking up at her from his school picture. 

          Her fingers traced the picture as if she could somehow reach through the print and touch him again.  And she stared, memorizing not so much the picture as how he had looked the day it was taken.

          "Is this the front page?" she asked.

          "It is," Mary answered.

          Anything she said after that went unheard, as Shana was lost in the tiny print arranged in neat columns along most of the bottom half of the paper. 

          Mary watched Shana's lips move as she read, and for the first time in a long time, she was nervous.  She smoothed a hand over the napkin on her lap and tried not to read along or to look anxious, or to interrupt.  She just let Shana read and hoped, really hoped, that her words had painted the meanings the other woman had intended. 

          Intentionally, just as with Kyle Lebec, Mary hadn't painted the boy to shine like an angel.  Neither had his mother.  He was an ordinary kid, and like all ordinary kids, extraordinary in his own unique ways.  She wanted to paint him the way his mom remembered him, with his faults and quirks in their rightful places, right there beside wishes and talents and achievements and dreams.  She wanted him to be the way his mother remembered him.

          Mary sat very still, moving only to lift steaming coffee to her lips.  And she waited with all the patience she could muster for Shana Morton to pass judgment on her writing.

          Shana made it nearly halfway before the words swam and blurred too badly for her to continue.  A tissue appeared just inside her line of vision.  She took it without looking and blinked hard enough to be able to see again.  And she kept on reading.  Moving through the lines even after she could hardly breathe, even after her nose began to run, even when she had to wipe away the tears so she could still see.

          When she looked up, tears had run rivulets down her brown cheeks.  The damp tissue was clenched hard in one fist.

          Shana didn’t speak for several seconds, torn between looking Mary in the face and hiding her red eyes and running nose.

          Mary rummaged in her purse and put the rest of the pack of tissues on the table between them.

          "Is it okay?" Mary asked finally.

          Shana nodded, blew her nose on a fresh tissue and found her voice.  "It's…" she hesitated.  "It's good."

          Mary smiled her relief.

          "You keep it," she said when Shana started to slide the paper back toward her.  "It's a mock up of how the front page will look tomorrow.  Don't worry about the rest of the page.  I just thought you'd like a copy of your own."

          Shana wiped her damp fingers impatiently on a pant leg before smoothing the paper gently against the table.

          It took Mary a second to realize that Shana had spoken.  Still looking down at the teenaged face smiling up out of the paper, she said "He wasn't perfect."

          Mary laid her right hand over Shana's left.  "He didn't have to be," she answered.

          And despite herself, Shana snorted, then hiccupped out an almost laugh.  "Good thing."  The boy could raise her temper like no one she ever knew.  Her mama said that was because Ty was her child through and through.  And every child ever born knew exactly how to make his momma mad enough to spit and happy enough to cry.

          She remembered with a pang the woman was still sleeping back at her apartment. 

          "You got him just right," Shana said, raising her head to look Mary right in the eye.  "Faults an' all."

          Mary smiled.

          "Thank you," Shana said.

          Mary patted her hand.  "My pleasure.  Thank you for trusting me with your story."

          Then Mary pulled her hand back and reached for her bag.

          Shana took a deep breath.  "I would like that coffee now, if you got time."

          Mary looked surprised and then pleased.  "I do.  Tell me what you want and I'll go get it."

          Shana ordered a Kenya Roast sweet and light.  She flipped the paper over while Mary went to the counter, and took a long look at the big story in tomorrow's paper.

          It took her only the time it took Mary to return with the coffee and a couple of small cookies for Shana to find her resolve.  She had learned a long time ago that doing what she knew she ought to wasn't always easy, but it was the only way to get to sleep at night.

          Mary Travis was surprised to see Shana reading the story above the fold.  It wasn't that she had tried to hide it.  It was also a fine piece of journalism, even if she did say so herself.  Still, she hadn't really expected it to become a focus of their meeting.

          Shana looked up at her, as she set down the cookies and the coffee and slid back into her chair.

          "Is this really the story that's gonna be on the front page tomorrow?" Shana asked, tapping the columns above the fold.

          "Yes, but I can remove it from your copy if you prefer," Mary offered.  She supposed there was indeed an odd imbalance in having scandal and allegations of intimidation and harassment right above the tale of a decent life cut short by an afternoon's bad decisions.  She could well understand why Shana wouldn’t necessarily want to have both stories to hold on to.

          Unexpectedly, Shana fixed her with a hard look, her whole face holding a cast of stony obstinacy.

          Pinning the paper to the table with one fingernail, Shana said quietly but firmly, "That night you came to my apartment, I told you this man didn't do nothing to me.  Why are you still printing articles like he did?"

          It was not what Mary expected, but she rose to the occasion.  "You also said no one was going to believe that and you didn't intend to file charges."

          Shana jerked.  "I didn't file the charges."

          Mary narrowed her eyes and reminded herself to tread very very lightly.  "But your lawyer filed them on your behalf."

          Shana's mouth went thin and bitter and her eyes slid off to the right.  Mary could see there was more that she wanted to say, more that she held behind the thin distasteful line of her lips.  All Mary had to do was wait her out.

          She took a sip of her coffee.

          "My lawyer ain't half as smart as he thinks he is," Shana said sardonically.  "In fact, ain't nobody half as smart as my lawyer thinks he is."

          Mary raised her eyebrows and nodded sympathetically.

          "Well," Shana said.  "Looks like he outsmarted his own self this time."

          Against her better judgment, Mary reminded herself of her principles and interrupted.  "Are you giving me information about the harassment charges that your lawyer filed?  Are you asking me to print this in the paper?"

          Mary's pulse pounded in her neck to the phantom sound of pieces clicking into place, and she tried not to look eager.

          Shana glowered across the table top, but it wasn't really Mary she was glowering at. 

          "I ain't supposed to talk about it," Shana said.

          "I can imagine," Mary answered.  "But…" she prompted.

          "I told them he didn't harass me.  He didn't do nothing.  He just stood there and looked at me."

          Mary frowned.  "He just looked at you?" she repeated.

          Shana's face colored a little.  "I think he wanted to say something, but there wasn't anything to say.  You know?"

          "What do you think he wanted to say?" Mary asked, curious now.

          Shana huffed out a breath and looked at her under raised eyebrows.

          "Okay," Mary conceded.  "Never mind."  She supposed there were a hundred things that Chris Larabee might have wanted to say. 

          "But you didn't feel that he was trying to intimidate you at all?" she asked.

          Shana shook her head.  "No."  She looked down at the paper again and almost smiled.  "He gave me his card.  I think he just wanted to help."

          Mary bit down hard on her urge to smile at that image, Chris standing there all in black, looking down at this tiny woman at close range, probably carrying a concealed weapon, too.  That was Chris Larabee being helpful.  It wasn't hard to see where Gillingham got the idea that Chris might be trying to intimidate her.

          "Why didn't you tell your lawyer that right away?"  She asked.

          Shana looked away, embarrassed.  "I just wanted to forget it," she said.  "I just wanted it to go away.  I guess I thought it would until my lawyer had to go and make it all official."  She looked concerned.  "Will he lose his job?"

          "Not if he didn't do anything wrong," Mary replied, and she noticed Shana looked relieved.

          "Will your lawyer be dropping the charges?"  Mary asked.

          "I don't know," Shana answered.  She looked perplexed.  "I told him tonight  the charges weren't true, but he didn't really seem interested in hearing that.  Neither did Cyril D'Aprix."

          "I can imagine," Mary said.  "Mr. D'Aprix seems to have built quite a lot of publicity for his efforts off of... all this," she trailed off unsure quite what to say to characterize what was, for most of the city, mere current events, but for the woman in front of her was the moment her life changed forever.

          Shana's face retained its bitter expression at the mention of Cyril D'Aprix's name.  And Mary ventured to guess she didn't think much of a man who could use her personal tragedy so transparently, even in the cause of the public good.

          Mary took another long sip of her coffee, her mind moving ahead.

          Then she put the coffee down and pulled out her notepad and pen.

          "Is all this on the record?" Mary asked.  Her pen poised above the pad. 

          Shana looked at the notepad doubtfully.  Then she shrugged indifferently.  "It's the truth," she said.  "Maybe it'll help me unsell my soul to that devil representing me in court," she added acidly. 

          "You can fire him, you know," Mary informed her. 

          Shana shook her head and smiled a bitter smile.  "I didn't exactly hire him.  He kind of just took over."

          Mary remembered how terribly hard it had been in the aftermath of Steven's murder to try to keep up with the maelstrom of lawyers and investigators and paperwork and reporters, and funeral planning and tasks of daily living that seemed to swirl around her like debris in a tornado.  She had had Orin and Evie back then, and accounts in place, and wills and estate planning, and a lawyer she trusted to take care of so many of the problems before any of them could clip her unawares. That was what had let her concentrate on Billy. 

          Shana had had none of that.  Mary could well imagine how overwhelmed she must have been and what an easy target for a lawyer like Gillingham who was primarily interested in what he had to gain from a case like this:  power, prestige, publicity, and more than a little money.

          She did not say any of this to Shana.  She simply nodded sympathetically and said, "I understand how that can happen."

          Mary wrote a note on the pad.  "So, you don't believe Agent Larabee tried to intimidate you at your lawyer's office," she recapped, moving the conversation back on track.  "He just looked at you like he wanted to say something and then gave you his card."

          Mary looked at her.  "He never said anything?" 

          "Not to me," Shana answered.

          "Not to you?"

          "I think he said something to my lawyer before he came over to me," Shana said.  The tiniest of smiles flickered at the corner of her lips.  "I don't think my lawyer liked it much."

          Mary's own lips twitched at that.  She could imagine that, too.

          "Do you know anything about D'Aprix's charge that Agent Larabee was in the cemetery the day of Kyle Lebec's funeral?"  Mary asked, neat shorthand notes filling the lines of the small paper.

          "He was there," Shana answered.  "I didn't even see him until Cyril D'Aprix marched over there and gave him what for."

          Mary looked at her.  "What did you make of it at the time?"

          Shana looked uncomfortable.  "The man's got family buried there," she answered.

          Mary frowned.  "How do you know that?"

          "That's where he was standing," she stated baldly.  "An' if Cyril D'Aprix had bothered to look, he'd have noticed it, too."

          Mary frowned a little more.  "But how did you know those were his family's graves?"

          Shana's frown mirrored her own, clearly not understanding what Mary was trying to ask.  "Because they all had the same name," Shana said slowly, the way someone does when she knows that she isn't giving the right answer.

          "But how did you know Agent Larabee's name if you never met before?" Mary asked a little more pointedly, and Shana's mouth suddenly formed a silent "oh".

          She closed her eyes and when she opened them, Mary saw something like dread written there, belying the hard edge in the voice that answered.  "We met before."

          Mary put down the pen and looked Shana directly in the eye.

          "Can you tell me where or under what circumstances?"

          And from the look on Shana's face, she wasn't entirely sure she wanted to hear the answer.

          "You and Agent Larabee already knew each other at the time that D'Aprix spotted him in the cemetery," Mary prompted.  "So he wasn't exactly a stranger when he gave you his card at your lawyer's office.  So how do you know each other?"

          Shana fidgeted a little in her seat then suddenly seemed to realize what she was doing and held herself rigidly still.

          "We don't exactly know each other," Shana hedged.

          Mary took a breath.  "People will draw their own conclusions if you don't tell them the truth."

          That was as clear as she wanted to make it, and thankfully Shana got the picture.  Her face flushed darkly and her eyes snapped angrily.

          "What are you tryin' to say?" she demanded.

          Mary held up both palms.  "I'm not trying to say anything," she said hurriedly.  "But I'm asking you to tell me how you know each other."

          Shana looked like she would rather be anywhere else, doing anything else but answer that question, and for a second Mary thought she was going to bolt.

          But she didn't.  She gripped her chair with both hands and answered the question in a voice that was hard and flat and devoid of any emotion at all.

          "He was in the room the night Tyson died.  I don't know why he came.  But he came and sat and waited.  There wasn't nobody there but me and Tyson and he sat and waited and when it was over, he walked me to the lobby, and then he went away.  That's how I know Agent Larabee."

          It came out all in one flat stream of words, and the shock of it made Mary's pen miss a step.

          "He did?" she blurted out before she could even stop herself. 

          It wasn't at all what she had expected.  And somehow it was harder to hear than anything she might reasonably have expected. 

          Shana didn't answer.  Not in words.  But the truth was written right on her face. 

          He did.

          He had seen this woman through the worst possible night of her life and then walked quietly away—until that day outside the lawyer's office, when all he did was give her his card. 

          All he did was give her a card.  Silent support.  One shoulder at a time.

          And let her keep her secrets.

          That was all.

          _Oh, Chris_ , she thought, but left the thought unfinished.

          She didn't repeat her notes back to Shana or offer any comments.  What was there to say about the night a woman loses her child? 

          It occurred to her that maybe Shana and Chris were both right.  Maybe she didn't really understand. 

          And she hoped she never did.

          Mary cleared her throat.

          "If I run this story," she said carefully, "Your lawyer will likely be very upset.  He'll know who gave me this information, and he's going to make things very uncomfortable for you.  Mr. D'Aprix might have some unkind words to say as well."

          Shana shrugged, but Mary could see it was only bravado.  Her eyes were worried and more than a little afraid.

          "What can he do except call me names?" Shana asked.

          Mary smiled a little.  "Not much."

          "I been called names before," Shana said coolly.  She tapped Mary's notes.  "That's the truth."

          She hesitated.  "Agent Larabee's a good man.  He don't deserve what he's getting.  And it ain't right," she said finally.

          "You're a brave woman," Mary said, shaking her head in admiration.

          "For telling the truth?"  Shana asked derisively.  "If I was brave, I wouldn't have let them keep telling all those lies all this time."

          Mary's smile softened.  "I didn't mean for telling the truth," she answered.  "But that took courage, too."

          Shana surprised her again by smiling back fleetingly.

          She slid out of the seat and held up the article about Ty.  "Thank you for this."

          "You're quite welcome," Mary answered sincerely.  She was glad she had done it.

          Shana looked at her for a minute.  "You ain't what I thought you were," she said before turning and threading her way through the crowded seats the way she had come.

          Still grinning at the compliment, Mary finished her coffee, and ate both of the cookies before fishing out her phone and calling Marty at home.

          No other paper was going to have this story, and there was still time to get it out by morning.

          Shana took the paper Mary gave her to Ty's room after all, and she sat there surrounding by the odd assortment of objects teenage boys collect, artifacts of childhood and harbingers of onrushing adulthood sitting side by side, neither of which she had yet been able to bring herself to pack up or clean up or even move from their haphazardly appointed places.  She read the article to the silent room, speaking in whispers, feeling that maybe some small part of Ty was with her in that place, and not daring to question it lest it fade away again.

          When she went to bed, she left the article on the kitchen table, carefully folded back as Mary had given it to her, for her mother to read in the dark silence of early morning, when the circulation in her legs would no longer let her sleep. 

          Shana crawled into her own bed beside her mother, careful not to disturb her, and finding solace in the calm of being cried out for the night and the warmth of another being beside her. 

 

 

          Buck was bright and cheery for early morning.  He whistled as he went about putting together his breakfast, pausing only long enough to sniff the milk to see if it was spoiled.  J.D. watched him suspiciously, which had so far only made Buck laugh and bend closer to inspect the kid's black eye and declare it still just a "little dirt spot".

          Buck wasn't one to overanalyze a good mood, or to admit that a good portion of it was probably the release of the pressure of being responsible for the success of yesterday's bust and the safety of the team.  It wasn't the first time he wondered how Chris managed it, the thousands of tiny details, and knowing which ones were likely to turn lethal.  Chris would only tell him that experience helped, which was a shit answer, as far as Buck was concerned.  He didn't want that kind of experience, and could happily leave Chris to it.  And he planned to, just as soon as the people upstairs got their heads out of their asses and declared the charges bogus so Chris could get back to supervising the team, which was what he did best.  So Buck could get back to being second in command, which was what he did best.

          The thought of getting back to normal caused him to cast a surreptitious glance in J.D.'s direction and guiltily remember the court case hanging over J.D.'s head like an anvil in a cartoon. 

          At least the kid had stopped blaming himself for what happened.

          Out loud, anyway, where Buck could hear it. 

          Buck couldn't quite vouch for what J.D. told himself, or might start telling himself when witnesses started being called to the stand.

          As for Buck, he was just waiting to hear actual court dates and times because he had every intention of using any and all vacation days he had to plant himself in that courtroom right at J.D.'s proverbial back.  He doubted Chris would turn down his request.  Hell, Chris would want to be there himself.  But he probably couldn't because Mama ATF cared more about the mission than the men. 

          Buck was far too familiar with that idea from his days in the Navy, and watching what it had done to Chris to have to follow those kinds of orders.  Never let it be said Buck didn't learn from experience, even that of other people.  If it came right to it, he had no problem telling the Bureau they could damn well do without him for a few days.  Actually, he amended happily, he wouldn't have to give Mama ATF that particular finger himself.  That was also part of Chris's job. 

          Feeling even better now, Buck carried his too-full bowl of cereal to the tiny kitchen table.

          "Did you get the paper?" he asked J.D. needlessly.  If the kid had fetched the paper, there wouldn't have been room for Buck to set down his bowl of cereal.

          "Why bother?" J.D. asked, a definite note of gloom and doom in his voice.  Again.  And when things had been so much better in the Saloon last night.

          "It's the same as yesterday," J.D. said.

          "It's not the same as yesterday," Buck insisted and offered in to evidence that there were now several fewer big baddies out there on the street.  "Thanks to us," he reminded the kid, poking him with one foot.

          "Story on page 12," J.D. said morosely. 

          Buck sighed.

          "Come on," J.D. said.  "No one wants to read about what any of us did right this week.  They only care about what we did wrong."

          "Or," J.D. continued, not even waiting for Buck to respond, "what they think we did wrong, when we really didn't do anything wrong.  But no one wants to hear that either."

          Buck pointed a meaningful finger at him.  "You just keep remembering you didn't do anything wrong."

          "I remember," the kid said glumly. 

          Buck took a few spoonfuls in silence, while J.D. crunched on his peanut butter toast.  Burnt because neither of them had yet bothered to go out and get a new toaster.

          Finally, he couldn't stand the suspense.  "I'm going out to get the paper," he said.

          "Knock yourself out," J.D. answered disinterestedly.  "Let me know if we made the front page."

          "Top ATF Agent Buck Wilmington led his team to yet another stunning victory over the criminals that plague our fair city," Buck recited as he went out the front door. 

          J.D. snorted as Buck rattled on about the supposed heroism of said top agent.  Typically, Buck's fantasy article was careful not to mention Team Eight or even the rest of Team Seven at all—although it did go out of its way to mention of top ATF Agent Wilmington's charming personality and good looks. 

          The front door closed on that thought, and J.D. heard the thump of Buck's big booted feet clomping down the short flight of stairs to the mailboxes in the entryway.

          A moment or two later, he heard them coming back up, taking the steps two at a time, from the sound of it.  Having lost his appetite, J.D. scraped the carbonized crumbs of what had once been actual bread into the garbage bin.

          The door burst open as a cry of "Holy shit!" burst out of Buck, startling J.D. into spilling the crumbs onto the floor. 

          The scattered crumbs went unnoticed because Buck's outburst had also jumpstarted his curiosity.  Maybe the bust did make the front page, J.D. considered, watching Buck skim the front page, the corners of his mouth lifting higher and higher, until J.D. thought the curiosity might burn a hole right through him.

          "What does it say?" he demanded finally.

          But when Buck finally spoke it was not to answer J.D.  "Damn," he said.  Followed by "That sneaky little shit."  And "That goddamn sneaky little shit."

          "What?" J.D. demanded again, unable to bear the suspense any longer.  "Is it about the bust?"

          "No," Buck said shortly.  He threw the paper at J.D. and shoveled cereal into his mouth, standing up.  "Give it back when you're done," he said right through a mouthful of Cheerios.  "I still gotta finish reading it."

          The bowl was still half full when Buck put it in the sink and bounded up the stairs.

          "Where are you going?"  J.D. hollered at him.

          "To find that sneaky little shit," came the answer as Buck came leaping back down the stairs, truck keys in hand.

          J.D. rolled his eyes and straightened the paper out on the table.

          "Holy shit!" he exclaimed. 

          But nobody was left in the townhouse to answer him.

 

 

          If three miles had been good enough in the cool pink of five thirty a.m., then three more miles ought to have been better.  Or so Chris would have thought, but when he turned his running shoes around the final bend, he could already see Buck's familiar red truck in his driveway.  He could think of no reason that Buck would be at his house this early in the morning that boded particularly well for him—which was also too bad for Buck because he was already pre-irritated, and three more grueling miles hadn't done much to dispel the problem.  Hopefully Buck would have sense enough not to make himself too tempting an outlet.

          He pounded up the driveway hard enough to feel the vibration traveling up his shins and he stomped good and hard on the front porch just to give Buck fair warning.  He gave about a half a second's thought to cooling down and stretching properly, but aggravation carried him through the front door instead and into the kitchen, where Buck was sitting at the table, eating toast and reading the front page of the goddamn paper, which Chris, like an idiot, had left sitting out on the kitchen table.  He ought to have known better than to leave anything of a private or embarrassing nature sitting out on his own table in his own house, because oddly, despite the fact that he lived in his house alone, he had no realistic expectation of privacy.

          "Hey!" Buck said through a mouthful of crumbs as Chris plucked the paper right out of his hands and dumped it in the recycling bin.

          "I was reading that," Buck griped, wiping crumbs off his hands and onto a napkin.

          "Why are you here?" Chris asked, leaning on the counter and skewering Buck with a hostile glare.

          "You slapped Shana Morton's lawyer and Cyril D'Aprix both with lawsuits," Buck said, which was an odd answer to Chris's question, unless of course one knew Buck, which Chris did. 

          Chris's response was also odd, unless one knew Chris, which Buck certainly did.  Chris turned and walked out of the room.

          "Defamation of character.  Filing false charges."  Buck listed, following him out of the kitchen and out into the living room.  He was chortling now.  "I can't believe you're suing them."

          "Well shooting them might get me in trouble," Chris said acidly, his feet still moving toward the stairs. 

          "That's true," Buck said thoughtfully, as if it had actually been a real consideration instead of just a nice fantasy.

          "Suing is a great idea, though." Buck continued, oblivious to Chris's silence.  "Put them on the defensive for a while.  Speak to them in a language they understand."

          Chris knew better than to answer.

          "Don't you think they would have seen that coming, though?  I mean, isn't that like standard operating procedure in the legal action handbook?  Sue the guy right back?"

          Chris refused to answer that, too.

          He got halfway up the stairs.  Halfway to the sanctuary of the one room in the house where no one else went tromping through his business and his life.  Halfway there.

          Then Buck said, "So how did you get Shana Morton to stand up for you?"

          He froze right in his tracks.  And felt that hot column of anger race right up his spine and into the back of his neck.  As much at himself as at anyone else.  But it was Buck who was standing in the downstairs hallway stupidly poking at it.

          Chris turned slowly on the step to look down at Buck with deadly eyes.  "You need to go to work now," he said with icy calm.   

          Buck looked at him oddly for just a fraction of a second before he seemed to understand.  "Okay, okay," he said, backing up.  "I just wanted to know what you've got up that sneaky little sleeve of yours."

          "Now," Chris snapped.

          "Fine," Buck said, more than a little petulantly.  The words "cranky old bastard" among others, came floating back from the kitchen, where Buck was probably retrieving the newspaper from the recycling bin.

          Chris turned and went on up the stairs, expecting Buck to leave, without need of supervision, and get his ass to work.

 

 

          Loud thumping on the bathroom door and a cry of "Nathan!  You need to get out here!  Hurry!" interrupted Nathan Jackson's meditation on his to-do list for today.

          From the pitch of Raine's voice, he suspected the spider, wasp, millipede, or—God forbid—the cockroach out there in the bedroom must have been enormous.

          He tossed his head under the shower and dashed, soaking, dripping, and holding tight to his towel with one hand, out into the bedroom, where Raine stood barefoot on the floor in the tops of her scrubs, pointing one hand frantically toward the radio.

          Nathan glowered at her and stalked over to turn it up. 

          Miles Sandford again. 

          Surprising how much he had come to dislike this show in the last several weeks.

          Cyril D'Aprix was on—again.

          "So it _is_ a giant cockroach," he muttered to himself.

          "What?" Raine asked.

          Nathan just shook his head and tried to orient himself to what was obviously the middle of a conversation.

          "Will you be retracting your allegations of harassment then?" Sandford was asking.

          Nathan stood stock-still and squinted at the radio as if possibly he might somehow be able to see what they were saying a little more clearly that way.

          D'Aprix, nearly imperceptibly, but at this volume, very definitely, stuttered a little on the reply.  "It is premature to discuss retraction of any charges."

          "But the alleged victim has, as of this morning, very publicly denied that any harassment occurred."  And Nathan wondered if it was just him, or was that a note of glee in Sandford's voice?

          "It's one newspaper," D'Aprix said.  "The only one, I might add, to carry this story, out of the entire area.  I would like to see further confirmation before I would even consider that any kind of error has been made."  He seemed to gain strength and wind as he spoke.  "Especially, if you recall, that I myself personally witnessed Agent Larabee's stalker-like behavior at the funeral of Kyle Lebec."

          "How do you characterize stalker-like?" Miles asked.

          "Yeah," Nathan agreed, waving the hand that was not still holding onto his towel.  "Explain that."

          D'Aprix didn’t seem to like the question.  His tone held a definite note of disdain.  "If you had been there, as I was, and had seen the man, as I did, then you would know exactly what I mean."

          "Well, explain it for our radio audience then," Miles said calmly, and Nathan punched his free fist happily into the air marking one point for Sandford.

          Raine looked at him from the corner of one eye, but she stayed focused on D'Aprix's reply.

          "The man stood on a hill overlooking the funeral of the child killed by his very own agent.  He was in full view.  He made no attempt to approach or to offer respects.  He just stood there like some kind of giant vulture, a giant predator, watching the services going on.  Now if you're the mother of the slain child, you tell me that's not gall."

          "Gall and bad taste are not the same as intimidation," Miles said.  "In any event," he continued, "it has been countered that the place where he stood was actually part of his own family plot."

          Beside him, Nathan heard Raine suck in a breath.

          "I don’t care if it was Grant's Tomb, or public property," D'Aprix answered hotly.  "You don't just show up at a funeral where you know you're not welcome and claim that you meant no provocation."

          This was not going to make Chris happy.

          "Shit," Nathan breathed.  He glanced hurriedly at Raine. 

          "Watch your mouth," she said, looking at him sideways.  She hesitated before adding, "But I completely agree."

          "According to the same sources contacted by the Clarion," Miles was saying.  "Agent Larabee is suing you for defamation of character.  How do you answer that?"

          Nathan's mouth fell open.  Raine looked at him.

          "He's suing them?" Raine asked faintly.

          "News to me," Nathan answered.  He looked at Raine. 

          "Because just shooting them would be out of the question?" she asked.

          And Nathan had to clamp down on the laugh that burst out of him, so he could hear the show.  That was his Raine, for you.  She was a sharp one.

          D'Aprix was busily waving away the allegations against him with a long-winded reply about suing being a standard delaying tactic, especially when one's actual evidence is weak.

          He evidently missed the irony in Sandford's harrumphing exhalation of air.

          "But if your victim has denied the allegations, what case do you have left?" Sandford asked mildly. 

          "Until she tells me herself that no harassment occurred, I can only conclude that someone somewhere has exerted some sort of pressure on her, probably illegally and certainly immorally, to recant her story.  If it isn't true, then why hasn't Agent Larabee come forth himself?  Or anyone claiming to represent him?  Or even anyone who claims to know him?  Why has no one but a faceless federal bureau and one lawyer bothered to refute the charges?" 

          He was on his soapbox now.

          "Don't let him do that, Sandford," Nathan complained.  "It's your show, man."

          D'Aprix continued.  "If someone levied that kind of charge on me, you can be assured I would be inviting him to public debate in every forum that would hear us out.  The truth should not be denied," D'Aprix said grandly.  "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free."

          "Jesus Christ," Nathan snarled out in exasperation and then remembered Raine was still standing right beside him.

          Happily, she was still listening intently to Sandford.

          "Are you issuing an invitation to Agent Larabee to come answer your allegations in a public forum?" Miles asked slowly.

          "I am," D'Aprix said.

          "Would this radio show be public enough?"

          D'Aprix chuckled heartily at that. "I daresay it wouldn’t be Agent Larabee's usual crowd."

          "Nevertheless, if he's willing, I'll be happy to schedule it in," Miles said.

          "Fat chance of that," Raine grumbled, as Sandford ran through his end of show announcements.

          "Yeah, well that's why D'Aprix said it," Nathan agreed.  "Now if Chris doesn't come, the audience takes it as D'Aprix being right."

          "Well D'Aprix is full of…crap," Raine retorted.

          And Nathan smiled because he knew what she had really wanted to say.

          "Yeah he is," Nathan agreed.

          "Sandford said the Clarion is carrying the story this morning that Shana Morton has recanted," Raine said thoughtfully.  She pulled on the matching pants to her scrubs.  "I'm going to run out and get a copy."

          "Get two," Nathan said, realizing he was now standing in a puddle.  "I want to take one to work in case the boys haven't seen it."

          "Are you kidding?" Raine asked.  "That nosey bunch.  I guarantee you that among the seven of you, you get every single newspaper and website published in our area."

          Nathan grinned.  There was no arguing that, but he did anyway.  "It's not being nosey," he called after her.  "It's part of our job to keep abreast of the local and regional news."

          Her distant "uh-huh" from somewhere near the front door told him she was not convinced.  But he knew she'd bring back two papers, as asked. 

 

 

          J.D. folded the paper back and gave a deep sigh that must have come from somewhere down by his toes.  He stared at the picture of the fifteen year old smiling up at him in all ignorance of how this was all going to end.  He didn't want to read this article any more than he had wanted to read about Kyle Lebec.  He didn't want to know what kind of a living, breathing kid Tyson Morton had been.  He didn't want to know what Tyson Morton had wanted from life or what he had dreamed about or whom he had loved.  He didn't want to know.  But he couldn't help himself any more than he had been able to help himself when Kyle Lebec's photo had smiled up at him like a punch in the gut.  He knew damn well it was going to hurt like hell to read this story, too.  But that wasn't enough to stop him. 

 

 

          To say Gerald Gillingham was furious was an understatement.  He had barely set foot in his living room, barely turned on a mere third of the myriad devices he had set up to catch up-to-the-minute news feeds—particularly when he had been able to achieve front pages, headlines, and sound bites the way he had been recently—when two items among the many caught his attention.  The first was a web transcript of D'Aprix's conversation with Miles Sandford this morning, which made him aware he needed to read the Clarion immediately.

          He was already swearing by the time he called up the online edition and started reading the feature story with a glaring headline he found impossible to understand for several seconds:  _Victim Denies Harassment Charge_. 

          His eyes skimmed the story with increasing disbelief and a rising fury.

          How did this reporter get hold of his client?

          And why would his client tell a reporter, of all people, that the harassment never happened when he had told her in no uncertain terms to keep it to herself?  Surely she couldn't be that dumb.  No one could be that dumb.

          He tried to call her at work, but the mental midget claiming to be Shana Morton's boss wouldn't take her the phone unless Gillingham declared it to be a bona fide emergency involving blood, 911, and emergency room staff. 

          "I want to speak to your supervisor immediately," Gillingham snarled.  He was winding up to give the man a satisfying dressing down, but he didn't get very far.

          "And I want a million bucks," the man on the other end of the phone said with a tired sounding sigh.  "Looks like we're both out of luck."

          Then there was only the silence of listening to someone who had already hung up.

          Gillingham was in the process of dialing the number back to give the son of a bitch a piece of his mind, when he forced his rational mind to take control.  The little tyrant wasn't going to give Shana the phone, so he wasn't going to have the satisfaction of speaking to her and asking what the hell she thought she was doing damaging her own case this way until somewhere around lunch time.  Between whenever that turned out to be and the moment at hand, he had opportunity to get a hold of D'Aprix's ear and find out what kind of cerebral hemorrhage he had had this morning that made him think challenging Larabee to a debate was a smart idea?

          "What the hell were you thinking challenging Larabee to come on that show and debate with you?" he practically yelled into the little pickup on the phone. 

          "I got ambushed," D'Aprix said petulantly.  "I wasn't expecting Sandford to ask about the lawsuit, and I certainly wasn't aware that Shana Morton went to the press.  How was I supposed to know he knew any of that?  Maybe you need to keep a better handle on your client."

          Gillingham fairly snarled his reply into the phone "You got a plan for what you're going to say when Larabee tells Sandford's entire listening public that he didn't harass my client.  And she said so herself?"

          "Again, there wouldn't be a problem if your client had kept her mouth shut," D'Aprix shot back.  "Besides, it isn't going to happen," D'Aprix said confidently.  "There won't be a debate.  Larabee's kind don’t come out of the shadows and make themselves available to answer questions.  He's not going to answer questions about his own conduct and the conduct of the agent he supervised.  He won't expose himself to questions from an audience that is well-informed about real incidences of harassment, injustice, and institutionalized racism and bias in the past decade.  He isn't going to open himself up to real questions of social justice."

          "I don't give a rat's ass about your social justice, Cyril," Gillingham spat out.  "I want a jury pool sown with doubt and distrust.  I want shades of gray.  I'm not giving out opportunities to start airing facts before the trial begins.  I want to win a damn case.  Not change the world."

          D'Aprix's voice betrayed deep offense.  "There's more here at stake than a court case.  This is about more than Shana Morton or the tragic deaths of three boys whom it is too late to save.  This is about the next three boys or the three after that.  It's about making a community, a city, a state, a nation where children from my neighborhoods really do have an equal chance.  It's about liberty and justice for all.  It's about--"

          "Don't sermonize to me, D'Aprix," Gillingham spat out.  "I gave you your public forum and you damn well are not going to use it to jeopardize my case.  Because if you do, if this comes back to bite me in the ass, I will make you and your goddamn social cause pay for the inconvenience."

          There was a brief silence on the other end of the phone.  "It's not going to happen," D'Aprix said again, with carefully maintained calm. 

          "It sure as hell better not," Gillingham threatened.  "Because thanks to Shana Morton, you and I have a whole lot more work to do to keep my jury pool nice and suspicious."

          "I'm not sure what exactly you mean by that," Cyril said hesitantly, as if Gillingham was handing him fruit of the poison tree.

          "Be in my office by 9:45, and then I'll tell you exactly what I mean."

          "I have commitments," D'Aprix said indignantly.  "I can't just drop them on your say-so."

          "Yes, you can," Gillingham countered.  "Because all those social reforms you're so dedicated to making happen and all your political maneuvering are all dependent on your credibility.  And right now, your credibility is hanging by a thread."

          D'Aprix seemed inclined to press the point until Gillingham added, "Unless you want to fend off a defamation lawsuit on your own."

          Gillingham was almost certain he heard D'Aprix mutter something uncharacteristically foul right before saying that he would "see what he could do" about putting off his morning commitments.

          "You do that," Gillingham said. 

          He hung up on D'Aprix.  Then he put in a call to Webb Healey, which naturally went straight to voice mail.  Gillingham left a message indicating that Healey had better pick up that message and get his ass to Gillingham's office in short order. 

          He clicked off the media devices and went for a fast, hot shower, spent planning out what his next steps would be now that the game had altered somewhat.

 

 

          J.D. carefully cut out the article when he had finished reading it.  He folded it and carried it into his bedroom and opened the dresser drawer where he had placed the article from the other day, the one about Kyle.  His hand halted in mid air, remembering a description of boys who had been inseparable in life and who were now buried side by side, thanks to the generosity of donors.  Memorialized together.  Eulogized together.  Together in their wrongful death suit against him.

          He gave an enormous sigh and pulled both articles out of the drawer, folded them one size smaller and stuffed them into the pocket of his pants.  Then he put on his badge and his gun and he went out to his motorcycle.  On the way he dialed Frank's office.

          "Please call me back and let me know if there's a time we can talk," he soberly asked Frank's voice mail.

 

 

          By the time D'Aprix arrived at Gillingham's office, promptly at 9:45, a punctuality that did more to reveal the man's concerns than any of his words did to belie them, Gillingham was already making the rounds of assigning marching orders to his small army of investigators.  He let D'Aprix cool his heels in the outer lobby a while longer while he finished making his arrangements.

          First Dunne.  He couldn't remain dirt-free forever.  Gillingham knew perfectly well that no one working in a government law enforcement job could be that squeaky clean.  He needed access to Dunne's records.  He needed to know every disciplinary action, every fudged report, every mistake made on duty, every questionable act committed under pretense of making an arrest or closing a case, every extra staple brought home from the office, every extra long lunch or day falsely called in sick.  Any and every violation or act of stupidity the agent had ever made.  His lead investigator gave a sigh and a long silence and stated that he would continue to keep his best crews on it in Boston and New York, and he would inform Gillingham right away the moment he found something with potential.

          Then there was the rest of the vaunted Team Seven.  He wanted dirt on them, too.  A man couldn't be squeaky clean if he was keeping company with a dirty half dozen.  Especially Larabee.  Maybe the world would be forced to believe Larabee didn’t intimidate Shana Morton, but Gillingham was sure the man had a history of intimidating someone.  Probably a lot of someones.  Gillingham would have bet his stock portfolio and his BMW both on that fact.  He wanted records of official complaints, and he wanted unofficial complaints too.

          He sneered at his reflection in his office window.  Larabee could try to fight fire with fire, but he didn't know who he was up against.  Defamation of character, indeed.  Gillingham would happily bet he had the man's character pegged exactly right.  As his mother liked to quote, "Methinks the lady doth protest too much."  The proof was out there, and he was going to get it.

          And finally, that reporter.  He didn't know how Mary Travis got Shana Morton to talk, but the woman needed to be both smeared and discredited right away.  His investigator had already assured him it would be easy enough to do.

          He came out of his office with a satisfied grin.  Now all he needed was to give Cyril his role to play. 

          This suit would be his to win again.

          Just as soon as he had Shana Morton firmly under his control once more. 

 

 

          By the time Buck finally made it to the office from all the way out at Chris's ranch, Vin, Nathan, J.D., and Josiah already had their heads together over the morning edition of _The Clarion_.  Buck fetched a fresh cup of coffee and shouldered his way in among them.  Ezra, of course, was nowhere to be seen. 

          "You saw the paper?" Nathan asked, raising his head to look at Buck.  It wasn't exactly a question.

          "I saw it," Buck answered.  He wedged himself into a viewing spot between Vin and J.D.

          "Did anyone else hear Miles Sandford this morning?" Nathan asked.

          Josiah looked at him from the corner of one eye.  "What happened on Sandford?" he asked mildly.

          "Not much," Nathan said with no little sarcasm.  "Cyril D'Aprix said this entire article is unsubstantiated rumor—except for the lawsuit part, which is true and is the act of a desperate man who knows he is guilty.

          "Well," Vin drawled, pointing at the paper, "'expressed her belief', ain't exactly as cut and dried as 'He didn't do it'."

          Buck shrugged. 

          "Well, it's something for her to come out and say she didn't think Chris was trying to intimidate her," J.D. put in.

          "Yeah, it's something," Buck agreed. "But I guess if people don't want to believe it, they can work real hard to ignore it."

          "Exactly," Nathan interrupted.  "D'Aprix's encouraging people not to believe it.  And that little weasel issued an open challenge to Chris to come debate him right on Sandford's show."  Nathan sounded thoroughly disgusted. 

          Josiah shrugged.  "It certainly would make for interesting listening," he said.

          Nathan glowered at him.  "D'Aprix knows Chris won't do that."

          "Why not?" Josiah asked calmly.

          Now J.D. was looking at both of them like they had just sprouted antlers.  "You think Chris would get on the radio and debate someone?  If he knew he had been challenged, I mean."

          Buck and Vin looked at each other and then back at their colleagues.  "No," they answered firmly.

          "I didn't think he'd sue either," Josiah offered thoughtfully.

          "Not his usual m.o.," Nathan agreed.

          "'Course not," Vin drawled.  "Accordin' to the papers, his usual m.o. would be harassment and intimidation."

          Buck did grin at that.  "Don't sell Chris short," he advised.  He raised his coffee cup toward Nathan.  "Knowin' Chris, he's got somethin' up his sleeve."

          "Bein' a tactical genius and all," Vin encouraged sardonically.

          Buck glowered at him.

          "You think this is all part of some plan?" Nathan asked, shaking his head.  "If it is, it's the worst plan Chris has ever come up with."

          Buck's shrug was not particularly comforting.

          Vin snorted.  "What you have here boys, is a regular old west showdown."

          The other men looked at him. 

          "How you figure that?"  Buck asked.

          Vin leaned back on the nearest desk and crossed his arms.  He nodded at J.D.  "Larabee stuck his nose into their nice little lawsuit against J.D., 'cause that's his job."

          J.D. nodded his agreement. 

          "So Gillingham and D'Aprix tried to put him back in his place," Vin continued.  "This defamation lawsuit is just Larabee's way of calling them out, nice and legal like.  He's tellin' 'em to prove it or shut the hell up."

          Nathan nodded at that.  "Lawsuits are something these people understand."

          "The media is something these people understand," Ezra drawled from somewhere near the door.

          Five pairs of eyes turned up toward the clock.

          "Nice of you to join us today," Buck said, nodding toward the clock.

          Ezra smiled at Buck.  "Spoken by the man whose truck hasn't cooled off yet."

          Buck smiled toothily back.

          "As I was saying," Ezra continued, putting down his briefcase and unlocking his desk drawers, "Gillingham and D'Aprix don't want to take Chris to court.  They just want to try him in the press and be done with it."

          "'Cept Chris ain't gonna back down or knuckle under like a good boy," Vin said.

          "Yes," Ezra replied.  "Seems they could have been better informed about Mr. Larabee's stubborn streak."

          "Hey!" J.D. said, a gleam sparking through his eye.  "Maybe they really can get him to debate."

          Buck opened his mouth.

          "That would be a disaster," Ezra proclaimed.

          "Now, now," Buck chided him.  "Chris can talk a good game when he's got a mind to.  Otherwise this little band of ours might-a been broken up a long time ago."

          "Nevertheless," Ezra continued, "they don't actually want to debate him either.  They just want people to believe he's a racist thug."  He looked at his colleagues, "and therefore, so are we all, unless…"

          Nathan looked like he wanted to choke.  "I am not going to be your poster boy for diversity," he said hotly.

          "Fuck you," Vin said happily.  "Black agents are a dime a dozen.  I'm part Kiowa, raised part-time on a reservation."

          "Sanchez," Josiah offered succinctly.

          Buck and J.D. looked at each other.  Buck spoke for both of them.  "We got nothin'." 

          Ezra closed his eyes.  "No one suggested anything of the kind," he said with a long-suffering sigh.  "It just seems that taking the silent high road lets people out there make all kinds of assumptions about us."

          He sat down at his desk and began pulling folders out of his desk.  "What we need is some good publicity.  Not," he said irritatedly, tossing his own folded-back paper onto J.D.'s desk with the other one, "to have two enormous busts like the double coup we pulled off in the last two days show up as a veritable footnote on page 4."

          They all looked at the paper.  "You would think," he said sourly, "given the current state of affairs, our much vaunted PR department might take the initiative to show the public how we are helping exactly the communities of people we are accused of holding down."

          "That's a good point," Buck conceded.  He looked around at the team bullpen and once more at the clock.  "But there ain't nothing we can do about it, except work our patent Team Seven magic again and hope someone takes notice."

          "In other words," he said, turning on his heel and heading for his desk.  "Conference room in twenty minutes.  Bring your open cases and status reports."

          The pronouncement was followed by grumbling, but the newspapers disappeared and file folders blossomed open on desks. 

          Six open cases.  A veritable flood after the short blockade that had kept work from flowing onto their desks while the ATF investigated J.D.'s actions in earnest and tried to quell the resultant PR disasters, the thought of which still made Buck wince.  It was the ATF's way of saying nothing had happened, getting gunrunners and rumrunners off the streets was more important, and they needed their best team in action and hard at work.

          And they were.

          Buck just hoped the brass got their heads out of their nether regions real soon where Chris was concerned because there was no way he wanted to ramrod any one of these cases on his own—let alone all six.

          "Vin?"

          Buck made no sign that he heard the kid's whisper.  From the top of his peripheral vision, he saw Vin turn toward J.D.

          "Why would Chris give her his business card?"

          He watched Vin shrug.  "Don't know."

          "If he wanted to be sympathetic, why didn't he just say 'sorry for your loss' like a normal person?"

          Buck suppressed his grin. 

          Vin said it for him, though.  "Chris ain't normal."

          "Would have saved him a lot of trouble, though," J.D. said, almost forgetting to whisper.

          Buck gave up pretending not to listen.  Not that the subterfuge was working anyway because Vin looked right at him and asked, "You ever know Larabee to go out of his way to avoid getting into trouble?"

          "Nope," Buck answered.

          "Why would he give her his card, though?" J.D. asked again.  "It's not like she's gonna call him."

          Buck looked at Vin.  And he knew Vin was asking himself the same question, but neither one of them put it out there out loud.

          Was there a reason for Chris to think that she might?

          There was a better question, though, and Buck asked it.  "Why would she tell the press he didn't intimidate her?  Clearing Chris isn't going to help her case much.  And it makes her lawyer look stupid." He looked at J.D. from the corner of his eye.

          "Well it helps me," J.D. said.

          "That it does," Buck agreed.  He smiled to himself.  It was nice to catch a breath of J.D.'s characteristic optimism, seeing as it was in such short supply these days. 

          Ezra popped the bubble.

          "It would help you a lot more to keep you out of the headlines all together," he suggested.  "And let all the furor and gossip die down so you can get a fair jury."

          Buck did his best to kick Ezra under the desk. 

          "Perhaps Shana Morton is simply a woman of great integrity," Josiah offered from his desk.  "And not willing to let lies be spread on her so-called behalf."

          Buck nodded thoughtfully at that, like maybe he believed it—or at least wanted to. 

          "Great," Vin said.  "Then we can all just sit back and wait for her to figure out that her suit against J.D.'s got no grounds either.  Then she can go tell the press that it was her kid's own damn decisions that put him in the middle of a robbery and in the middle of danger."

          "Now that would be integrity," Nathan grumbled.

          Josiah looked over at him. 

          "D'Aprix really riled you up today," Josiah said, leaning back in his chair to face Nathan squarely.

          "I'm not riled up," Nathan retorted.

          "Okay," Josiah said reasonably.  "You're not riled up."  He raised his coffee cup toward Nathan's head.  "But the wheels are surely turning."

          Nathan looked over at him disgustedly.  "You know I believe in social justice as much as anyone," he stated.

          "More than most, I'd say," Josiah contradicted kindly.

          Nathan nodded, his troubled thoughts now showing in the furrows over his eyes.  "Every day," he said, "people in this country live out a legacy of decades of racism and centuries of prejudice."

          Josiah noted the subtle shift of his colleagues' attention.  If Nathan noticed, he gave no indication, and Josiah well knew how deeply Nathan felt and had lived his convictions on this particular topic. 

          "You can't reasonably dispute that part of this legacy of American history is that a disproportionate number of the people living in poverty are people of color," Nathan pointed out.

          Josiah nodded his head.  "But?"

          "But Cyril D'Aprix is not what we need to fix this problem," Nathan said hotly, leaning toward Josiah and the rest of the bullpen.  All heads were turned toward him now.  "Everywhere that man goes he preaches the language of victimhood.  Shana Morton:" he said, counting off on his fingers, "Victim of harassment.  Radim Taylor, Kyle Lebec, and Tyson Morton:  Victims of circumstance.  Their families: victims of poverty.  The entire membership of the communities they lived in:  Victims of an unjust and racist government."

          No one in the bullpen moved.

          "Victims all of them.  And not one of them responsible for themselves, their circumstances, what happened to them, or even the actions they chose to take."

          Nathan jabbed a finger down onto Josiah's desk with a force that made J.D. twitch. 

          "I believe in social change," Nathan said.  "I believe in making changes that allow more people now living in poverty to live up to their potential.  But you can't just throw free will and personal accountability out the window."

          Jackson's gaze swept over his teammates.  "There are doctors and lawyers and honest, hard-working and successful people all over this country who grew up in mean neighborhoods.  They got where they are today because they made choices that would get them there."

          His eyes settled on J.D.

          "And those three boys are where they are today because they made choices that put them in that robbery.  It ain't only J.D. who made choices here."

          _Amen to that, Brother,_ Josiah thought, watching the same thought mirrored in his friends' faces.  "Social consciousness must go hand in hand with personal conscience," he summed up nicely.

          "Exactly," Nathan said fiercely.  "You want to empower people?  Then you got to give them responsibility for their decisions.  Right or wrong."

          "Reforms need to level the playing field," he finished.  "But the players still got to show up to play—and play like they want to win, if they expect to come out winners."

          There was silence in the bullpen.  Even Ezra looked like he was thinking Jackson's words over.

          Josiah swiveled his chair toward Nathan.  "Maybe you should debate D'Aprix," he teased.

          Nathan rolled his eyes.  "Don't get me started," he said disgustedly and turned to his computer screen.

          Josiah smiled to himself.  _Too bad_ , he thought philosophically.  Jackson versus D'Aprix would have been entertaining indeed.

          Buck looked over at J.D., disturbed by the worry he saw written in the kid's face when he thought no one was paying attention.  _Mr. Stoic_ , Buck thought aggravatedly.  _Tough guy._ Buck knew exactly where the kid got that shit from.  _Larabee, you son of a bitch._

          Buck looked at the clock and shoved his papers around on his desk.  Running a tactical meeting on Sisto Verdura et al was the last thing he wanted to do right now.  Somehow he felt a much more important case was sitting right here in his own bullpen and that's what they ought to be concentrating their efforts on.

          But then Chris would kill him—slowly—if he came back to hear that the team hadn't done shit in his absence.

          Somehow, now was not the time to talk to Chris about his priorities.

 

 


	14. Chapter 14

          Shana Morton's boss delivered the telephone message just as soon as he saw her making her way toward the break room. 

          "Gerald Gillingham," Randy said tersely.  He had never met Gillingham, and he seemed less than impressed, which made Shana almost smile.

          "Thank you," she said, taking the message out of his hand.

          Randy shifted his weight from one remarkably small foot for a man his size to the other and back.  She looked at him and waited.

          "I read _The Clarion_ this morning," he said.  "It was a nice story," he hesitated.  "The one about your son, I mean."

          The words took her aback.  It took her a second to find her voice.  "Thank you." 

          She turned quickly away, continuing on her trajectory toward the break room.

          But his voice stopped her.  "I read that other article, too," he said a little more firmly.  He nodded his head as if agreeing with himself or maybe just encouraging himself to finish his thought.  "That was a hell of a brave thing," he said.  "To stand up and tell it like that."

          Shana shook her head.  "It was just the truth." 

          He looked at the message curled in her hand.

          "Still, it took guts," he said a little less awkwardly.  "I can respect that," he said, nodding his head at the note in her hand, "even if he doesn't."

          The words made her cold.  Gillingham must have been awfully pissed off this morning.  She had tried to tell him. 

          She should have told him earlier. 

          She should have done a lot of things differently.  She would have to live with those regrets, but surprisingly, telling Mary Travis the truth didn't seem to be one of them.  In fact, when she poked at it, she felt surprisingly at ease with it.  Maybe it had been a mistake to do it—especially behind her lawyer's back like that.  Maybe it was even a big mistake.  But it was a mistake she could live with.

          She gave Randy a small smile of thanks and clenched the paper a little tighter.  She was going to have to call Gillingham eventually. 

 

 

          "Special Agent Pulaski, Internal Affairs," the woman said, her voice and tone every bit as crisp as the cornflower-blue blouse that set off her neatly tailored black suit.

          "AD Travis is expecting you," Deborah said with a smile.  "I'll tell him you're here."

          She gestured toward the small group of chairs that sat against the wall across from her desk and offered Agent Pulaski a seat, as she pressed the intercom.

          A moment later, Travis opened his door himself.

          "Agent Pulaski," he greeted her cordially.

          "AD Travis," she answered in kind, shaking his hand.

          "Come in," Travis said.  He stood aside in the doorway to let her pass and asked Deborah to hold his calls. 

          He could tell from the look on Deborah's face that she was already ahead of him.

          Nina Pulaski waited for AD Travis to close the door before she took a seat in one of the large chairs across from his desk.  She had not been in here since the day ADs Benedetto and Travis, herself, the Head of PR and one of his reps had sat in this office shortly after the shooting incident.  Thinking back on it, she could understand why Agent Larabee might have felt a bit cornered.  She supposed it did seem a whole lot like a hostile interrogation. 

          She didn't think about it overly much, though.  After all, sometimes her job felt like it was based on how well she could conduct hostile interrogations. 

          Today was a good day, though.  Today she got to deliver the kind of news she preferred to pass around.

          She smiled at Travis.  "Our investigation hasn't uncovered a shred of corroborating evidence beyond Gillingham's say-so that Agent Larabee attempted to intimidate his client or harass her in any way.  Officially, this complaint is closed."

          Naturally, Travis did not seem surprised. 

          "So I can bring Agent Larabee back to work?" he confirmed.

          "As soon as you want to," Pulaski agreed. 

          Travis grinned at that.  "I suppose I should give him the afternoon."

          Pulaski grinned back.  She didn't really know Agent Larabee, but she had certainly learned a great deal about him in supervising the work on the current complaint and on the complaint against Dunne.  If Travis had asked her, she'd venture to guess that Agent Larabee would prefer to come in now. 

          But Travis didn't ask her, and she didn't offer an opinion.  She just nodded and got up from her chair.  "As far as Internal Affairs is concerned, Agent Larabee is cleared to return to full duties."

          Travis thanked her and shook her hand one more time before she crossed to the door.

          "I hope you won't be offended if I say that I hope this is the last time I see you for a while," Pulaski said.

          "No offense taken," Travis asked.  "I feel the same way."

          She nodded with mock grimness and answered.  "People usually do."

          Travis poked his head out after her to tell Deborah that he was taking calls again.  Then he called Chris's cell phone to give him the good news that he was only getting the rest of the afternoon and he was expected to arrive punctually in the morning to do his job like the rest of Travis's agents. 

          He was firm about the tomorrow morning part.

          Still, he wouldn't have been surprised to see Chris show up before the day was over.

          Wilmington would like that, too, Travis mused.  The man was more than competent and was quite promising team leader material.  But he was reluctant to shoulder the incumbent responsibilities.  At least not when Chris Larabee was around to do it for him.

          When Chris wasn't around… 

          Travis shuddered inwardly at an unpleasant memory and reminded himself to ask Chris how Buck's team leader training was going.  But not until after this entire Team Seven crisis and accompanying lawsuits had all blown over.

          He considered moseying down and having a look for himself, but decided that Larabee could probably handle it best.  That made him smile to himself and admit that maybe Wilmington's attitude wasn't so hard to understand after all.

 

 

          _Scot free.  Cleared.  Exonerated.  We're done investigating now.  You're good to go.  Come back to work whenever you want._

          Dev Pinchon heard the words in his head, each phrase pinching up his face a little more than the last one.

          He didn't give a shit what it said in IA's little manual of propriety in conducting internal investigations.  He was going to nail Chris Larabee's ass to the wall one of these days.  String him up by his own arrogance and watch his attitude strangle his career right to death.

          Dev didn't make any pretenses or cast about little mutterings about the detrimental effects of Larabee's methods and philosophy toward Bureau policy and effectiveness.  He didn't really give a shit about whether or not it was technically appropriate for a mere senior agent to have quite so much autonomy.  Nor did he waste time worrying about whether the chain of command had given entirely too much power over to Larabee.

          He just hated the bastard.  Pure.  Simple.  And personal.

          He knew it was wrong when he decided to go ahead and make the copies.

          But again, if his own IA compatriots wanted to look into it, they could.  There were a thousand ways he could excuse himself, so if they wanted to, they could go ahead and made a federal case out of it. 

          His own grim pun made him smile.

          But not half as much as the mere thought of handing over the copy of Larabee's entire personnel file to that shady investigator, Healey.

          Dev knew he could lose his job and his reputation both.  But it would be worth it to watch Larabee go down in flames first. 

          Besides, there was a very good chance he could get away with it.  All he had to do was be a hardworking, trustworthy agent hot on the trail of impropriety and abuse of authority.  No one would look twice as they filed out of the office and he kept working until they were gone. 

          He picked up the phone and dialed.

          "Healey," answered a thick, bored voice.

          "It's Pinchon," he said hurriedly.  "And I have intel for you.  Where can I meet you tonight?"

 

 

          When Gillingham got back from lunch, she was waiting in his office.  Bernadette had simply indicated his door with a thumb to let him know someone was waiting.  Gillingham was pleased to see her.  He was always pleased to see her.

          And why not?  Nira Lal was pleasant to look at.

          She made a long, bent line from her black pumps up sheer black stockings to her black silk suit skirt and jacket.  Her glossy black hair was knotted neatly on top of her head as it always was when she was working.  He liked to imagine what it  would look like when she let the whole shining mass down to cascade along the line of her graceful neck.

          She wore small-framed tortoiseshell glasses that sat delicately on her straight nose and framed large brown eyes, fringed with long dark lashes.  The glasses made her look smart enough to intimidate a lesser man.  He was not a lesser man.  And he also knew that the glasses did not do justice to the sharp intellect behind eyes that reminded him of brown velvet.  She was a whole lot smarter than she looked—which was actually saying quite a lot.

          She hardly even looked up at him as he came in, just tossed a plain manila file folder on his desk.

          "Hardly even worth my hourly rate," she said, the yawn evident in her voice.  "Mary Travis is the daughter-in-law of ATF Assistant Director Orin Travis, who is, not coincidentally I'm sure, also Chris Larabee's direct supervisor.  She has access to inside information, which makes her valuable to the paper, and an obvious relationship you can use to denote partiality, lack of objectivity and outright bias."

          Gillingham nodded. 

          "In the file are a number of recent articles Mrs. Travis has written.  I strung them together for you.  I know you're too busy to make up your own pro-ATF bias to discredit one little reporter."

          "Is that sarcasm I detect?" Gillingham asked coming around his desk.

          "If that's the way you want to read it," she answered coolly. 

          He preferred the sarcasm.

          "Thank you," he said.  "You gave Bernadette your invoice?"

          She leaned casually on the arm of her chair and looked up at him.  "When are you going to let me look into Dunne?"

          Gillingham put the file down and looked at her.  "Don't be greedy, Nira, my dear.  Amory does good work.  And there's enough of it to go around."

          "Girl's gotta eat," she said indifferently.

          That made him snort.  "At your hourly rate, I doubt that's a problem."

          She smiled, her lips a shiny red line.  "That depends on what a girl wants to eat and where she wants to eat it."

          "Well, if you lowered those rates, maybe I'd give you longer jobs," he retorted.

          "You get what you pay for," Nira said leaning forward.  She stood up, hovering a good three inches above Gillingham on high heels he didn't really need.

          "And you're paying for Amory," she said, without even hiding her contempt.

          He crossed in front of her and opened the door gallantly.

          He got a derisive sniff by way of thank you for his effort. 

          He gave her a poisonous smile and closed the door behind her, wondering whether he ought not to have taken her up on her suggestion.  Sure she was twice as expensive, but she'd probably get the job done in half the time it was taking Amory and his staff of incompetent halfwits.

          Even Webb Healey was making better progress.  The bluff older man with what Gillingham privately thought of as an old farmer's face—complete with the potato nose, deep furrows, and piggy eyes—had called not ten minutes ago, with news that a source in the ATF was expected to deliver him some information this very evening.

          Maybe he should put Healey on Dunne's tail, he mused.  Healey was making progress right here in Denver. 

          Looked like New York and Boston were dead ends if he was trying to find anything that looked like a fatal flaw in Dunne's character.

          He opened the door again.  "When Shana Morton calls, put her through," he called out to Bernadette.  "And expect it to be a long conversation."

          With his other hand he dialed his cell phone.

          "Cyril," he chirped with false warmth.  "I have just the information you need.  When is your next media appearance?"

 

 

          Two-thirty, in the middle of the afternoon, was the only opening Frank Lawford had in his calendar today.  J.D. took it, figuring he could convince Buck to let him have the time.  He even promised to come back in to make up the hours.

          Buck looked unhappy about it, which made J.D. consider that maybe he had been missing a lot of work time lately and that making up hours wasn't really the same as doing the work while the team was there. 

          He thought about his assigned tasks on the open cases they had discussed this morning, mentally running down his checklist, dividing the work into work he needed to collaborate on with other people or other departments and work he could accomplish all by himself after hours.  He opened his mouth to offer his promises that leaving this afternoon would not prevent him from meeting his obligations, but Buck just frowned harder.

          "I said you could go," he said testily.  "Don't worry about it.  Go meet with your lawyer." 

          J.D. frowned at the incongruence of Buck's words and his tone of voice, but he didn't say a word.  Travis had poked his head in an hour or so ago and informed them Chris would be back tomorrow.  And J.D. would rather have to ask Buck for time off today than ask Chris for time off tomorrow.

          He made his apologies at 2:10 and scooted out of the office quickly before he got sucked into one more job on his to-do list or one more consultation with a teammate.  Frank was pretty definite about how much time he had this afternoon, and if J.D. wanted to talk to him, then he needed to be there on time. 

          He was glad the time was going to be short.  Lawford might be working for him through the FLEOA, but that didn't make him cheap, and J.D.'s heart had sunk when he saw the first invoice.  Lawford told him not to worry about it yet, that they could make arrangements for payment when it was an appropriate time.  J.D. had mentioned as much to Josiah because he'd laid so much on Buck lately that he had begun to feel guilty for asking so much and embarrassed for needing to ask so much.  Josiah had said he should pay less attention to the cost of Lawford's skills than to the reasons he needed Lawford's skills.  Josiah knew a lot about these kinds of issues, so J.D. determined to take his words at face value.

          He found a parking spot a block away from Lawford's office.  Jogging, he was able to arrive exactly on time.  Frank was just coming in, and practically collided with him in the doorway.

          "Right on time," Frank said genially.  "Come on in."

          Frank's assistant held up a pair of phone messages on bright orange paper, and Frank grabbed them as he went by.  He gave them a cursory glance.

          "I have a quick meeting with Agent Dunne," he said.  "Then I'll come talk to you about my messages."

          She nodded easily and turned back to a stack of work piled near her elbow.

          J.D. followed Frank into his office and Frank closed the door behind them.  At Frank's gesture, J.D. plopped himself down onto the couch, hands clasped between his knees and knowing darn well how nervous he looked.

          Frank took a seat in the chair by the door and just looked at him for a long moment, until J.D. heaved a big sigh and got on with it.

          He pulled the two articles out of his pants pocket and laid them on the squat coffee table between himself and Frank.

          Frank seemed to scan the articles before turning his gaze questioningly back to J.D.

          "Have you read these?" J.D. asked.

          "I saw them," Frank answered, which wasn't exactly the same as reading them, J.D. noted.

          "You should read them," J.D. said quietly.  "I did."

          It was Frank's turn to sigh.  "I'm sure they are nice articles.  I'm sure they had quite a lot to say about who those two boys were."

          J.D. nodded, the lump that had begun to form in the back of his throat was slowly stealing his voice. 

          "It doesn't change what they did," Frank said.

          J.D. nodded his mute agreement.

          Frank regarded J.D. with sharp eyes.  He picked up the article about Tyson Morton and scanned it silently.  Then he put it down and picked up the one about Kyle Lebec.

          J.D.'s throat ached.

          "I'll admit," Frank said, placing the article about Kyle on top of the article about Tyson, "the articles are more balanced than I expected."

          J.D. breathed in through his nose and willed his vocal cords to work.  "I can't…I don't…."  He stutter-started then stopped.  He took a breath and called forth his training.  He was a damn federal agent after all.  He could pull himself together and be calm and rational. 

          So he did.

          "They weren't bad kids," he said evenly.  "But a stupid choice ended their lives."

          Frank nodded.  "Yes, it did."

          "Can we just leave it at that?" J.D. asked.

          Frank narrowed his eyes.  "What are you asking?"

          "We don't have to make them look bad," J.D. said earnestly.  "We don't have to sit there in front of their mothers and make them look like criminals."

          "They were robbing that store, J.D.," Frank reminded him.

          "I know," J.D. said, fighting to keep uncertainty from creeping back into his voice.  "But that shouldn't be what people remember about them."

          Frank sighed as J.D. pushed the torn newspaper clippings toward him.  "They should remember this," J.D. said, tapping the articles. 

          "J.D.," Frank said, one hand massaging the bridge of his nose, "wrongful death suits are a lot more subjective than a Fourth Amendment hearing as to whether you adhered to proper procedures and a reasonable code of conduct.  You don't want to go in front of a jury as the guy who shot two nice boys.  The point is they were engaged in the act of committing a violent crime and you had no choice but to use deadly force.  That is what the jury needs to come out hearing."

          "Okay," J.D. said, hating how small his voice sounded as he tried one more time to make himself heard.  "But can't we keep it at that.  Keep it at that robbery."  He halted, unable to get out just what he wanted to say.

          But Frank was very perceptive.  "You mean keep it at two stupid kids who made a bad choice that forced you to make a choice you didn't want to make but had to for the sake of public safety and innocent victims?" 

          J.D. felt a small cloud lift.  "Yeah.  That."

          "J.D.," Frank said calmly.  "These two boys weren't the scum of the earth.  Radim Taylor was a lot closer to being a hardened violent criminal than either of these.  As far as I can tell this was Kyle Lebec's first brush with big-time crime and Tyson Morton's only trip outside the law.  We all know it's a tragedy.  You especially.  And your sympathy does you credit.  But you know that the opposing counsel will have no qualms about painting you as a monster to influence the jury's opinion."

          "I know," J.D. answered.  "But that doesn't make them right to do it."

          Frank sighed again.  "Tell you what," he said finally.  "I will do my best to run this case in a manner that follows your conscience." 

          He skewered J.D. with a long hard look.  "But if the plaintiffs want to play hardball with your reputation, I don't see any reason to sit back and let them have their way, when the fact exists that all three of these boys were caught in the middle of committing a violent crime against an innocent and law-abiding citizen in their community.  You understand?"

          J.D. nodded.

         "I won't put it out there if they don't.  And if they want to shove, we will shove back.  You hired me to defend your career, your professional reputation, and your good name," Lawford said firmly.  "And I intend to win on all counts." 

          J.D. let out a breath.  "I understand," he said at last.  And he did.  He got up from the couch.

          "Thank you," he said, unsure exactly what he was thanking Lawford for.  For hearing him out?  For agreeing not to slander those kids? For promising to defend J.D. to his utmost. 

          There seemed a lot maybe that Frank deserved thanks for.  J.D. wondered if he should even begin to try to put it to words.

          Then Frank clapped a hand between his shoulder blades with a firm thump.  The lawyer shook his head. 

          He paused with his hand on the doorknob and looked at J.D. "You know," Frank said quietly, his eyes gone a little far away and J.D. waited patiently.  "Sometimes people in your line of work lose their hearts out there.  They just stop remembering that they are dealing with other human beings.  They get hardened somehow." 

          Frank's eyes focused back on J.D.  "For the record, Agent Dunne, you make me glad there are still people like you out there."

          And J.D. smiled at the compliment, tucking it away somewhere inside of himself, thinking he might need to have it to hold onto later on when things got ugly.  Because no matter what, he just knew it was bound to get ugly.

 

 

          Shana didn't call her lawyer on her lunch break.  She tried to rationalize that by the time she actually ate and took care of personal matters, thirty minutes just wasn't enough time.  But she knew she was just lying to herself.  She didn't want to have to speak to him.  What was she going to say? 

          There was nothing in the world she could say that would excuse going to the paper behind his back.  She doubted seriously that she could make him understand that her conscience had got a hold of her and she had acted on it.  She couldn't even make him understand this case was not about winners and losers and not about money and payback.  It wasn't even about vengeance.  Not to her. 

          So how was she to explain to him why she had suddenly decided to spill her guts to some white woman reporter just because the woman had shown her a little sympathy and a little humanity?  Or that Chris Larabee had done likewise, maybe more-so if she wanted to admit it, and he didn't deserve to get shit for it just for the sake of legal strategy.

          She didn't think that would go over very well.

          And the thought of getting another earful about getting on board, and playing by their rules, and remember this is your case, and don't forget this is about justice for your son—as if she could ever forget that—made her stomach feel cold and ill. 

          So she didn't call. 

          But she was going to have to face him sooner or later.

 

 

          Webb Healey sat in his Alpine Green 1998 Plymouth Breeze, eating pistachios and dropping the shells into the ash tray.  He was too tall for the car, and his shoulders were too wide to fit entirely comfortably in the driver's seat.  In fact, a friend had once observed that he looked like he had been crammed in there with a meat press and would have to be pried out with a crowbar.  It wasn't that bad.  His days of sleeping in a car while sitting outside some surveillance target's digs were well behind him.  And the Breeze was both unobtrusive and fairly easy to park.

          He cracked open another pale shell and popped the salty-sweet nut into his mouth, eyes automatically scanning all three mirrors and the lighted parking lot ahead of him.

          He spotted the man well before the man spotted him.  He came across the space of inky black pavement toward the agreed-on rendezvous point.  The man's walk was confident, but his head swiveled nervously from side to side, as if he feared that someone might be on his tail. 

          Webb smiled, and put aside the bag of nuts.  He opened his car door with a sigh and uncurled himself from the front seat. 

          Pinchon spotted him almost as soon as he got out of the car, and, Healey noticed, the man looked relieved.

          This Pinchon might have been a federal agent, Healey decided, but he clearly wasn't used to performing any kind of marginally covert operations.  Clutching his briefcase the way he was, he looked like a mugging about to happen.  Healey did him a favor and put a little extra speed in his step.  He wanted this over with, too. 

          "Pinchon?" he asked, as a matter of formality, when he got close,  and the skinny little guy looked startled to hear his name.  His eyes darted from side to side.  Webb had to almost smile at that.  It wasn't like they were actually alone.  It was a strip mall parking lot, for chrissakes.  It was reasonable to expect people to be going by.  That was the point of setting a rendezvous here.

          Pinchon obviously either sucked at this or was too long out of practice.

          Maybe that's why they put him in IA instead of out on the street.

          "Healey?" Pinchon returned, his voice rising with the question.  He must have heard it in his own tone because he drew himself up straight, let the briefcase fall more naturally at his side, and stuck out his hand formally to introduce himself.

          Healey took the hand but didn't bother to answer the question.  After all, if he wasn't, then Pinchon would have been in a whole heap of trouble.

          Given how poor the man was at this kind of subterfuge, Healey figured it wasn't going to be long before Pinchon found himself in a whole heap of trouble anyway.  But, Healey decided philosophically, that wasn't really his problem.

          Pinchon looked at him dubiously now, close up.

          Healey stood the scrutiny patiently.  He wasn't much to look at, he knew.  He'd heard it all before.  He wasn't good looking.  He was just built big.  Being handsome wasn't part of his job description, but being big, on the other hand, came in handy quite often. 

          He held out his hand for the documents Pinchon had promised.

          Pinchon pulled them from his briefcase.  They were nearly in Healey's hand before the skinny little guy hesitated.

          "The money we agreed on?" he said, almost furtively, his voice gone almost to a whisper. 

          Healey pulled a short stack of fifties from the pocket of his rumpled raincoat. 

          "Count it if you like," he said, none too quietly, just for the little pleasure of watching this fool squirm uncomfortably.

          If the idiot had been followed, Healey failed to see how that was his problem either.

          Pinchon actually counted the money.

          Healey waited, poking pistachio out of his teeth with the tip of his tongue and idly watching the people wandering, strolling, or purposefully striding across the parking lot. 

          Pinchon seemed satisfied and passed over the file folder.

          Healey thumbed through it in a lot less time than Pinchon had taken to count the money, but Pinchon still shifted from foot to foot.

          Healey figured from far off, they probably looked like two guys cutting a drug deal.

          It was Larabee's personnel file all right.  Plenty confidential.  And he'd just paid for it.

          Poor Pinchon.  He was up to his eyeballs in it now.  Better be something in there worth committing career suicide like this because Healey doubted seriously that Pinchon was going to get away scot free.  And especially not if there was anything really juicy in the folder.

          Healey nodded once at Pinchon to say they were done.  Transaction completed. 

          Pinchon made his way back to his car with long, hurried strides and Healey shook his head.

          He moved back toward his Breeze with a more measured step. 

          He was entirely certain there would be plenty to use in the file.  Agents had fat files for a reason.  And Larabee's certainly was thick. 

          Some thought gnawed at him uncertainly.  But he pushed it to the back of his mind and stayed focused on the job ahead. 

          He was going to need coffee if he was going to sort through this folder tonight.  Lots and lots of coffee.

 

 

          As soon as Shana spotted the shiny and expensive sedan parked in the back by the loading dock, she knew exactly what was about to happen. 

          She hadn't answered the phone or returned his calls.  Now he was here—in the flesh. 

          She hesitated a step, but it was too late.  The car door opened and Gerald Gillingham, in his expensive suit and shiny shoes, stepped out into the fading sunlight.

          He leaned nonchalantly against the door, arms crossed over his chest.

She could already feel his eyes upon her. 

          She let go of a long breath and then directed her step toward him.

          He straightened up when she came close, moving away from the car.

          Neither of them said a word.

          And Shana noted that his expression was not angry as she had expected, but rather schooled somehow, controlled.  He did not look directly at her, and as she got closer, he actually put on his sunglasses.

          "We ought to talk," he said, his voice perfectly cordial, as if he were greeting some person he had not seen in a long time.

          Shana stopped right in front of him, the low angle of the sun causing her to squint at the reflective glass covering his eyes.

          She couldn’t think of an answer to give him, especially if he hadn't started asking the questions yet.  So she held her tongue still and her gaze steady and waited him out.

          "I'm not angry with you," he said evenly.

          It galled her that he could simply assume she would worry about whether he was angry with her or not.  It galled her even more that he was right. 

          "Yes, you shouldn't have gone to that reporter," he said impatiently, as if he were replying to something she had actually said.  He flicked a hand casually in the air as if waving off a circling fly.  "But I understand why you did it."

          She felt her mouth drop open before she could stop it.  "You do?" she asked a little bewildered.

          He nodded his head, his mouth turning down at the corners.  "It was a dirty trick if you ask me."

          Shana shook her head.  What was he talking about?

          Gillingham's voice went all sympathetic.  "She didn't tell you, of course.  While grilling you to get her next big story, that reporter didn't happen to mention her conflict of interest."

          "Conflict of interest?" Shana repeated, feeling her face flush.

          "Conflict of interest," Gillingham said slowly back to her like it was a vocabulary word that needed memorizing.  "You see, Mary Travis is the daughter in law of ATF Assistant Director Orin Travis.  And Assistant Director Orin Travis is Agent Christopher Larabee's boss.  And therefore also Agent Dunne's boss."

          Shana stared distractedly at his mirror-glass face and tried to keep up with his line of thinking. 

          "So naturally," he explained, "she would have a vested interest in damaging your suit.  Her father in law's reputation is on the line here." 

          He removed his glasses.  "She didn't mention that.  Did she?"

          "No," Shana answered and her voice cracked on that one syllable.

          He fingered the frames of his sunglasses and cleared his throat before saying softly, "I'm sorry that she used your memories of your son to trick you into damaging your own case.  She manipulated you in the most deplorable, unprofessional and unforgivable of ways."  His voice was heavy, and his expression weighted down with regret. 

          She stared at him.

          Gillingham cleared his throat again.  " What's done is done," he said pragmatically. "You made a mistake.  You got tricked.  But," he continued, the word popping out like popcorn, "I can, fortunately fix the damage."

          He looked at her sternly.  "I just need to know you understand your role here, so I don't have to go fixing up any more mistakes."

          She opened her mouth to answer that.  To answer anything he had just said.  Had Mary Travis really just used her?  Did she look her right in the eye and talk about being a single mother and be all sympathetic, when that whole time Shana was talking and crying and spilling out memories to this stranger, Mary Travis was just plotting out how to get a big story?  And was she really just trying to help the ATF?

          Shana realized Gillingham was still looking at her.  Still waiting.  Her head seemed to nod of its own accord.

          "You need to just let me handle things," he said smoothly, calmly, comfortingly.  "I am a professional.  I am equipped to handle cases just like yours.  I know what to do.  I know how to do it.  Go to work.  Go home.  Go shopping.  Run your errands, but don't talk to anyone.  Don't tell anyone your story.  Don't talk about what happened or even what you think about it.  And when I do ask you to talk, you need to do what I tell you."

          He looked at her sharply.  "You do want to win, don't you?  You do want justice for your son?"

          That hit like an unexpected jab, a sharp point against her chest.  "Yes," she answered, keeping her voice steady.  _I want justice._

          "Then you need to trust me," he said smoothly.  "I know exactly what I'm doing."

          He smiled at her.  "So can you do that for me?  Keep from talking?" 

          He made it sound like the easiest thing in the world.  And shouldn't it be?  It wasn't like anyone had forced her to go talk to that reporter.  She'd had no business talking to that reporter. 

          He nodded approvingly even before she nodded her agreement. 

          He let go a little humorous snort.  "Just remember who your friends are," he said.  "And who the enemy is."

          She looked up at him against the lowering sun, the edges of him seemed to blur a little, to merge and bleed into the sun.  She shifted her weight to combat the disturbing image.

          He looked at her a little longer,  When he spoke again, his voice got a degree colder.  "You don't need to go defending the man who hand-picked J.D. Dunne to work for him, who requested an age-waiver to keep him on, and personally oversaw Dunne's training." 

          He put his sunglasses back on and opened his car door.

          "Don't forget," he said carefully, "the ATF and their lawyers are going to say your son was a thug.  They're going to try to convince a courtroom full of strangers that your boy was a violent criminal.  You don't really want to help them, do you?"

          He smiled, all white teeth and her own face where his eyes should have been.  "I have a lot of experience at this," he reminded her.  "I know exactly what to do here.  You just follow my lead.  Stick to the plan, and we'll have your justice, signed, sealed, and delivered.  Right?"

          She was supposed to answer.

          "Okay," she said numbly.

          "Okay," he repeated like a hypnotist on stage.  He nodded his head with satisfaction.  Then he slid behind the wheel.  The engine thrummed.  And he left her standing there in the parking lot, sun slowly sinking out of the sky.

          Words rolled through her head.  _Justice…  Tricked you…_

          Her feet carried her absently to her car.

          She was already moving out of the parking lot when it occurred to her what had seemed off about Gillingham's expression.  That whole time she had looked at him, neither his smile nor his sympathy had been reflected in his eyes.  They were as cold and expressionless as the lenses of his sunglasses.

          _Remember who your friends are.  Who the enemy is…_

          She remembered green eyes full of a pain she now recognized in her mirror.  Those eyes had met hers head on without flinching away.  They asked her a silent question.  And the business card had invited her to answer.

          She wanted justice for her child all right.  But it was hard to tell your friends apart from your enemies, when the people who were supposed to be your enemies were the ones who seemed to want to know if you were all right.

          She swore in words she had not hardly used in fifteen years.  Words she never let Ty know she knew how to wield.  She wielded them now.

          She wanted justice.  Her child was dead.  There should be justice for that. This, of all things, should be just that simple.  So why the hell was it all so goddamn murky and confused?

          At a stop light somewhere near two thirds of the way home, she stopped feeling angry at Gillingham, stopped second-guessing herself, stopped thinking about what she should have done or maybe said, or wishing she could change the past.  The past was the past.  She could not change either what she had done or what Ty had done. She could not change what had already been.  She could only change what she might yet do.

          The light changed.

          She took a deep breath and pulled forward into the future.

 

 

          "Mama!" Shana called, coming in the door.  She heard the slow scrape of a chair on the worn kitchen linoleum.  Then Shana was in the kitchen doorway.  "Don't get up."

          "Let me get your dinner," her mother protested.  Her legs were swollen again.  Shana could see it where the long cotton nightgown ended.

          "I'm not hungry," Shana said.  And she wasn't.  Her stomach was too filled with cold knots and hot stones to hold food too. 

          She looked at her mother.  "Did you take your medicine?" she asked and tried not to sound either weary or accusing.

          Her mother got indignant, which was as good as an answer.  She had not.

          "You got to take the medicine Mama, or," she waved a hand at her mother's legs, "this is what you get."

          Her mother frowned thunderously, but stopped in her struggle to get up and sat back down instead. 

          Shana got the pills and ran tap water into a glass.

          "Did you eat something for dinner?" Shana asked with as much patience as she could manage, reading the instructions on the bottle as best as she could under the fluourescent lights.  She blinked.  Her eyes felt scratchy and sandy. 

          "I had a little something waiting for you to get yourself home," her mother said tartly.

          "Good," Shana said.  She put the full dosage and the glass of water on the table in front of her mother, trying not to notice how small this woman was who sat at her table, when the woman of her memories had been a giant.

          "Take both pills and drink all the water," Shana said sternly.

          Her mother's mouth got thin, the way it did when she had something to say and was determined that it should not be said.  Shana wondered how many times she had seen that look in her life.

          She put water in a pot and put it on the stove to boil.

          She sat down in the chair next to her mother and looked at the woman for a long time, at the hair slowly going to silver, at the cotton nightgown, thinking of the ace bandages and the liniment and the soft grunt whenever the woman got up, her mother's only and unwilling admission of pain.  She laid a hand on a bony arm. 

          "Mama," she said and looked into dark eyes shaped exactly like her own, "we got to talk."

          Her mother looked at her and at the pot of water.

          "You should eat something first," she said. 

          Shana's hand tightened on the arm.  "No, Mama.  We got to talk.  Now the water's on.  We got 'til it boils."

          It was an old ritual between them.  They spoke their mind 'til the water boiled.  Then they drank peppermint tea and cooled off in the silence. 

          It might not have solved the world's problems or even their own.  It hadn't kept Shana from running off with Tyson's father.  But it had kept them together in ways that were maybe more important. 

          Her mother's eyes slid toward the pot and then back to her.  "I hope you got lots of water in that pot then," she said, and Shana felt her lips twitch. 

          "Don't you sass me, old woman," she said, her voice softening but not her will.

          The fingers on the hand that came up to stroke her hair and down to her face were slightly bent now with age and years of hard and determined work.

          She waited until her mother took the pills and drank all the water.

          Then they faced each other at the table.

          "You might not like what I got to say," Shana said.  But then that was the reason there had to be a pot of water.  "But it's got to be said."

          She took a breath.  "You saw the paper?"

          Her mother nodded. 

          "My lawyer came to see me when I left work tonight to talk about what else I said to that reporter lady."

          The lips thinned again.

          "He wasn't happy," Shana said, a little breathless laugh escaping her.  She hoped the stove took its sweet time. 

          Her mother gave only a disdainful huff. 

          "Just listen," Shana said, giving the arm still under her hand another gentle squeeze.  "I want to tell you what he said."

          So she told her, letting the words pour out: about Mary Travis and "conflict of interest", about Agent Larabee and Agent Dunne, about how Mr. Gillingham said he could fix the damage, could still win the case, about keeping her mouth shut.  She told her mama that Gillingham had asked her whether she still wanted justice for Ty. 

          "And what did you tell him?" her mother prompted, voice purposely calm and low.  She had a lot of practice at these kinds of discussions.

          "I told him I wanted justice for Ty," Shana said.  She looked hard at the woman before her.  She loved her mother with the same ferocity she had loved her son.  When and how that had happened, she didn't know.  Perhaps it had been when she had stopped needing her mother, and her mother had started needing her.

          She wanted to believe they were of the same mind in this.  She didn't think she could bear a bout of angry words or accusations.  She did not think she could bear to see more hurt in her mother's eyes.  She feared the disapproval she was about to bring down on herself might well squash her flat.  But the words needed to be said.  Nothing was to be gained by avoiding them.  And she resolved not to flinch. 

          "I don't like Gillingham," Shana said firmly.  "I don't trust him, and I don't like the way he works.  But he can win this lawsuit if anyone can."

          She tried not to let her hand squeeze too hard on the thin arm.  "Mama," Shana said, forcing out the words, "I don't want to win a lawsuit.  Gillingham wants to win a lawsuit.  I said I want justice for Ty.  And I do."

          Then her voice got fierce.  "But I don't think this is the kind of justice Ty deserves."

          Shana waited, staring straight into the dark eyes she knew well, waiting for a clue, any clue, but the eyes remained steady, calm, and utterly opaque.

          "The pot ain't boiled yet, Mama," she said impatiently.  "You get to talk now."

          The lips thinned a little more and Shana was afraid of what her mother might be thinking.

          Shana's mother inhaled once, sharply, through her nose and the lips parted, but it was another long moment before she spoke.  "What I got to say depends on what kind of justice you think Tyson deserves."

          They locked eyes. 

          Shana pulled the carefully folded newspaper article from her purse and straightened it gently between them.  She read the words again where it began. 

          Like all the others who wrote about the story, Mary Travis had not known Tyson.  But she had not reduced a child's life to one awful mistaken decision.  Mary Travis had listened to a mother's words and found the child in them.  Mary Travis had tried to make those words ring true in print, and somehow the reporter who Gillingham had said manipulated Shana so deplorably and unforgivably, had done Tyson justice—a better kind of justice than some courtroom that would judge him on his last foolish decision, the poor choices that teenagers make, and potentially turn him into a violent criminal in the eyes of all who heard. 

          Shana looked at her mother.  "I think," she said slowly, "what I want—what Ty deserves," her voice hitched, "is the kind of justice that remembers who he was.  He wasn't perfect.  I don't know what he was thinkin' when he went with those two fools, but I don't want that to be the only thing people remember about him.  That ain't justice." 

          They looked at each other for a long time.

          "You got any ideas how you going to make that happen?" her mother asked slowly.

          "No," Shana admitted.

          Her mama sighed.  "Well the pot ain't boiled yet.  So we got nothin' else to do but talk."

          Shana smiled with watery relief and let go a long pent-up breath.  Inside her, just one knot loosened up just a little.

 

 

          Webb Healey had the coffee ready to go, but a glass of a very nice Irish whiskey was in his hand.  Occasionally, his painstaking surveillance and under-the-table dealings in documents netted him something truly salacious, but most of the time the work he did wasn't even very interesting.  It was hours and days and sometimes even weeks of carefully plodding through boring public data, tedious demographics, mind-numbing web searches, and enough bureaucratic drivel to make a less-focused man want to walk off the nearest ten-story ledge.  But Healey was focused and he was highly skilled at ferreting out just the kind of information his employers wanted, able to spot a trail through the confusing quagmire of a society overly dependent on data, and follow it like a bloodhound until he uncovered the secrets his pursuees were trying so hard to conceal. 

          It was tedious in the extreme, but eventually there would be the sudden rush of triumphant victory, what Healey called the "Gotcha" moment.  He didn't do it for that rush, though, small as it was.  And he didn't do it for the pay.  He did it because some of these people deserved to have their sins brought up to daylight where they could be made to squirm and suffer like the slugs they were. 

          Some of these people, anyway.

          He took a gulp from his glass and reminded himself he had taken the retainer.  If he wanted to keep the money, he owed his client a return on his investment, and it didn't matter what he thought about it all.  Information was information.  The truth was the truth.

          If nothing else, this Larabee's file was unusually entertaining.

          Take the complaint filed by the citizen whose warehouse was being used as a front for the gunrunning arm of a local crime syndicate.  Apparently one of the man's own employees attempted to murder Larabee and one of his agents with a forklift.  And then the owner had the nerve to complain about the damage to his foreman's office done by said forklift.  That—and the fact that Larabee wrote down the number he could call to complain to on the back of the man's own hand before he walked off.

          Healey had made a short stack of photocopies of the reprimands in Larabee's personnel file for not making his team adhere more closely to official Bureau policies and procedures.  If one read them in a certain order, they invited the reader to only imagine how exactly Larabee had thumbed his nose at the Bureau's own bureaucracy, as the memos themselves seemed to indicate a tone of increasing exasperation.

          He came to a paperclipped stack of medical claims and return to active duty papers.  A quarter of the way down was a memo asking Human Resources to remove Larabee's file from the archive pile, declare his death a case of mistaken identity, reinstate him to active status, and tell the insurance company to pay the medical bills.

          Healey supposed that probably wasn't as funny for the people involved as it seemed to him. 

          However, he actually laughed out loud at a trio of paid invoices made out to Larabee personally for two phones and a replacement door for his office.

          But his favorite so far was a memo from Larabee replying to some other Senior Agent and inquiring which of a particular string of personally-directed, expletive-laden insults from one of Larabee's agents (a Vin Tanner) the man had particularly objected to as being untrue.

          This was the first time in a long time Healey had actually enjoyed the document-sifting phase of his job, which did nothing to help him ignore the knowledge that it just wasn't sitting well with him.

          So he decided to flip all the way to the back of the file and find out just how the ATF managed to find and hire a man who seemed to spend so much of his career-time pissing people off.

          He poured himself another Scotch when he read copies of a police report on a car bomb that killed a woman and child named Sarah and Adam Larabee in the driveway of their own home.  He skimmed a brief set of military records that contained the sparest of details yet revealed so much about the skill set that Larabee brought to the ATF.

          When he got to a set of memos between Senator Wilkey Redd and Orin Travis about forming a new kind of ATF team and between Orin Travis and Agent Larabee detailing hiring statuses, Healey went and got the coffee and a better pen—not caring that the details he began to scribble really weren't what his employer was after.

 

 

          The pounding on the bathroom door was urgent, and so was Nathan's dash to remove the shaving cream from his face and get out there.

          This time Raine didn't have to tell him twice.  He landed his boxer-clad bottom on the bedside beside his wife in her scrub pants and bra just as the opening strains of Sandford's opening theme music ended.

          "He said he has an answer to Friday's challenge," Raine said, looking at Nathan with wide and apprehensive eyes.

          Nathan was just as apprehensive.  Once again he repeated to her and to himself that Chris was due back at work today and couldn't possibly have time to do Sandford's show and get there on time, which for Chris was generally a good deal earlier than was strictly required.  Unless, of course, Chris planned on being somewhat later than usual today. 

          Raine, seeming to read his thoughts, shrugged at him.  "I'm just telling you what he said."

          "Shh," Nathan hissed.  Sandford was doing his greetings and welcomes. 

          "Please welcome back to the show a frequent visitor of late, Mr. Cyril D'Aprix, head of and spokesperson for the West End Community Action League.  Welcome, Mr. D'Aprix."

          D'Aprix sounded perky and confident as he answered, "Thank you, Miles, and may I say it is a pleasure to be here as always."

          Raine wrinkled up her nose distastefully in a way that generally made Nathan want to plant a kiss right on the end of it.  She snaked her warm arm around his waist.

          Miles was clearing his throat.  "You may well remember," he was telling his invisible audience scattered among the local area that could receive his signal, "last week Mr. D'Aprix levied a challenge to a debate, inviting ATF Agent Christopher Larabee to come and defend his recent actions regarding the mother of one of the teens tragically slain in recent weeks."

          Nathan could envision D'Aprix safely ensconced in his studio chair, nodding smugly.  Raine's arm tightened.

          "Well, Mr. D'Aprix, we have an answer to that challenge."

          The hesitation betrayed Cyril's surprise, as did the unnatural pitch of his voice as he answered, "I am delighted that Agent Larabee has accepted my challenge.  I am most interested in what he has to say."

          "Regrettably," Sandford said, "it isn't Agent Larabee himself." 

          Nathan could have sworn that Sandford sounded almost gleeful—or as close to it as someone as mellow as Sandford might get.

          "It is, however, a representative duly authorized to speak on the agent's behalf."  There was a pause followed by a cheerful "Here he is now.  We welcome Mr. Jacob Wilder, Mr. Larabee's attorney.  I trust you've met?"

          "Chris's lawyer?" Raine hissed as an unfamiliar voice on the radio answered Sandford with "Indeed we have."

          Nathan's face betrayed his own ignorance, and he leaned a little farther toward the radio.

          D'Aprix's "Nice to see you again" sounded less than completely sincere.

          "Mr. Wilder," Sandford continued, "is an attorney at law who has recently opened offices on the West Side in one of the districts Mr. D'Aprix has been working so hard to renew."

          "It's a great neighborhood," Wilder said generously.  "Mr. D'Aprix's efforts have done a lot to restore the feeling of community to the neighborhood."

          "Mr. Wilder," Sandford cut in.  "As Agent Larabee's attorney, he has authorized you to speak on his behalf regarding his recent actions surrounding the pending lawsuits against Agent John Dunne."

          "Yes," Wilder answered, sounding perfectly at ease.  "Agent Larabee and I have discussed the matter at length, and I am prepared to speak on his behalf."  Nathan could hear the grin in his voice as he said.  "So let's get started."

          Raine was evidently a lot less confident than this Jacob Wilder.  She closed her eyes and for a moment, Nathan suspected that she might be praying.

          Wilder began it.  "If I may?" he asked.  "It seems only fair that since Mr. D'Aprix had an unopposed forum in which to deride my client's good name and reputation, that I should have the opportunity to rebut those comments now." 

          Sandford sounded both taken aback and intrigued as he said, "I have no objections."

          Nobody asked D'Aprix if he objected. 

          "To begin with I would ask Mr. D'Aprix how he can continue to spread allegations of harassment when not only has the alleged victim denied them, but D'Aprix himself has witnessed nothing of the kind."

          "Mr. D'Aprix?" asked Sandford, the consummate moderator.  And Nathan could imagine him swiveling his chair between the two men.

          "First off," Cyril said, already rising to his soapbox, "the alleged, as you say, victim's alleged denial appeared in an article by a woman who has close ties to the ATF and therefore a reporting bias.  Her own father-in-law is Agent Christopher Larabee's boss.  That makes it hard to believe a factual basis for her story.  Second I am a personal witness to Agent Larabee's actions at Kyle Lebec's funeral."

          "Excuse me," Wilder interrupted.  "Was he actually _at_ the funeral?"

          "He wasn't among the mourners but he was there, standing above them and glowering down at them from the top of the hill like some medieval gargoyle."

          Nathan glowered at the radio.

          "And you saw this?" Wilder asked.

          "With my own eyes," D'Aprix confirmed. 

          "Then you know exactly where he was standing?"

          "What?"

          "The listening public should know where he was standing."

          "He was standing in a little clump of graves looking down at the funeral," D'Aprix answered quickly, hastening to add on, "a place where he had no right to be."

          Wilder snorted.  "Not to put too fine a point on it, but the man was standing among the graves of his own wife and child almost a hundred yards away from another funeral and to you, that makes him a gargoyle and a stalker.  My apologies to whomever I harassed and intimidated last week when I put flowers on Great Aunt Jess's and Grandpop's graves.  After all, there was another funeral going on in the same cemetery."

          "You weren't there," D'Aprix countered hotly.  "You didn't see him."

          "And you don't have any evidence stronger than a man standing at his own family's graves while another funeral was going on down the hill." Wilder retorted.  "As to his alleged harassment of Shana Morton," he went on, "How can you continue that line of reasoning when the official complaint has been dismissed and the so-called victim has clearly stated that it never happened?"

          "Stated it to a reporter with a clear bias and a conflict of interest," D'Aprix said, letting his voice rise to the accusation.

          "Again," Wilder said, "the public should have the information they need to make an informed opinion.  The reporter's father in law is Agent Larabee's and therefore, indirectly, also Agent Dunne's supervisor"

          D'Aprix stumbled a little but not for long.  "As I said," he reiterated, "a clear bias and a conflict of interest."

          "So because her father-in-law is in law enforcement, that automatically makes the reporter corrupt?" Wilder asked.  "I might suggest it looks like someone else here has a clear bias."

          Raine made a little harrumph of agreement.

          "It's a bit naïve, I think," D'Aprix answered, "to suggest that just because one is in law enforcement that makes a person automatically above reproach."

          "Ah, so now you're calling the reporter's father-in-law corrupt?"

          D'Aprix was quick to dodge that one.  "What I am saying," he said, his voice far harder than Nathan had yet heard it, "is that there is a history and a legacy of bias in the law enforcement community itself, aimed in particular at the communities that most need to be protected.  Consider profiling, recent cases of coerced confessions, abuse and harassment during interrogations, verifiable delayed responses and non-responses to reported criminal activities in neighborhoods known to house a higher population of persons of color, notably African- and Caribbean-Americans, and everyday assumptions of guilt based solely on skin color and personal history.  You'll forgive me if I find it ridiculous to assume that because a person has chosen a career enforcing the laws, he either applies them equally or obeys them himself."

          Nathan jerked straight upright at that. 

          Raine didn't quite hear the expletive that left his lips, but she saw his hand dart across the bed aiming straight for his phone.

          Raine was quicker and closer.  She grabbed it first.  "Don't you dare."

          "Cyril," Wilder interrupted him, his voice cool, as it rose over and up above D'Aprix's, "I grew up in exactly the communities you are talking about.  I was able to come back to those neighborhoods with a degree and a private practice in law precisely because of the programs put in place by your predecessors and yourself.  I have my offices where I do because I believe in the importance of your work and the justice you stand for.  But I also believe in the law and equal protection under the laws, and I'm not going to let past history and experience grind innocent persons under the treads of your social mission."

          Wilder continued right over D'Aprix's objection and even Sandford aborted whatever he had been about to say. 

          "You have not one shred of evidence that Agent Larabee did anything at all except visit his own family plot and deliver papers to Ms. Morton's attorney.  What you actually have is Mrs. Morton's statement on a public record that she believed Agent Larabee was offering an expression of sympathy when he gave her his business card."

          "What kind of expression of sympathy is that?" D'Aprix demanded, and Nathan happily noted that was all he had to come back with.

          "It's hard for me to judge what is a reasonable expression of sympathy between people who have lost children," Wilder pointed out. 

          Nathan and Raine both winced.

          "If you and I are both lucky, we'll never know," Wilder finished.

          Sandford finally managed to cut in.  "You can't deny a history of prejudice and bias among the law enforcement community and the existence of several current cases that reflect an inequity in applying the principles of enforcement and protection across communities."

          "No, I can't deny that.  I'd be a fool and a liar if I did," Wilder said vehemently.  "But just as all black people aren't criminals, neither are all police and federal agents racist, biased or corrupt.  There's not a shred of evidence to support this defamation of Agent Larabee's character or his work.  There is abundant evidence, in fact, of the contrary."

          "Yeah," Nathan snapped, still reaching for the phone.  Raine held it away from him.

          "You are not calling in to that show," she said tartly.  "Chris's lawyer is doing fine without you jumping in and making it worse."

          D'Aprix cited statistics of racism in police and law enforcement agencies across the United States

          Wilder countered yet again by agreeing with D'Aprix's causes but not his characterization of Agent Larabee.

          "How am I going to make it worse?" Nathan demanded.      

          Raine glared at him.  "Because you'll tell everyone exactly who you are.  Then you'll speak your fool mind without thinking about who you might be insulting, and that will tick off the entire listening audience.  How exactly is that helping?"

          Nathan glowered back at her.  "I don't do that," he said.

          Her returning "Mm-hmmm," did not impart a sense of belief.

          "I'd just show them Chris isn't a racist."

          "No you won't," she said firmly.  "Because you won't be calling."

          Sandford was asking D'Aprix if he had any actual evidence to show Larabee had a history of intimidation or bias.

          D'Aprix hedged.  He couldn't say what evidence he did or didn't have because he didn't want to jeopardize the current investigation or lawsuit.

          "Give me the phone," Nathan argued.  "I'm a federal agent and withholding my phone is a federal offense."

          "You make that call," Raine retorted, "and this little phone isn't the only thing I'll be withholding."

          He glared at her.  "You wouldn't," he challenged her, but her eyes told him she would.

          "All right," he answered grumpily.  He softened his voice.  "I won't call.  I'll just sit here beside you and enjoy the view." He let his eyes roam seductively over her half-dressed form. 

          On the radio, Wilder was calmly serving notice that if D'Aprix had some information to show Larabee had acted in any way that was legally actionable, then he ought to say so shortly, preferably now because this line of reasoning had been proven pretty well null and void. 

          D'Aprix hedged further.

          "Just let me have my phone, baby," Nathan crooned.

          Raine smiled sweetly back at him.  "As soon as the show is off the air," she answered, and kissed him right on the lips to soften the sting.

          Then Sandford was beginning his credits and sign-off and Nathan was watching his chances slip right away.  He'd have to pry his phone out of Raine's hand to get it from her, and he wouldn't do that.  And the house phone was too far away, dammit.

          He glowered at the radio.

          "I think that lawyer did all right," Raine said. 

          Nathan stared forlornly at the phone as she deposited it in his lap.

          She let go one of those laughs that made Nathan think of sunlight on water.  "I'll bet D'Aprix's mad he couldn't play the race card.  Not against a lawyer who comes from D'Aprix's own community."

          Nathan snorted.  Interesting point that. 

          And although he didn't want to, he couldn't help wondering if Chris hired Wilder for that reason.  It wasn't like Chris to pay much attention at all to a person's race or ethnicity or language, or their status or career or bankroll or religion, or, well, any of the social trappings normal people used to group others, the details that served as shorthand definitions of a person's character.  More often than not, Chris hardly even looked _at_ you.  It felt more like looking through you—and as Nathan could attest, that could be good or it could be very bad. 

          Still Chris was a strategist at heart, a master strategist from what Nathan had seen—a tactical genius if Buck was to be believed.  Blocking D'Aprix's standard tactic by nullifying the social consciousness and race card sure as hell looked like something a master strategist might do. 

          But the idea that Chris had chosen race as a weapon in his defensive arsenal did not sit well in Nathan's stomach.

          He tried not to think about it.

          Chris Larabee was not a racist.  And he would gladly have called in to tell that stuffed-shirted, slander-spewing idiot in the opposing chair in terms even _he_ could have understood. 

          If only Raine would have let him have the phone. 


	15. Chapter 15

          On the whole, it was all pretty subtle, considering the players, but to an astute observer familiar with the subjects under observation, the furtive shuffling, deliberate pass-bys between desks, and aborted conversations were a dead giveaway.  Not only that, Chris Larabee had actually seen the fleeting apparition of a white paper ghosting between desks, flickering like a heat mirage until some skillful sleight of hand made it vanish again. 

          No, Chris Larabee didn't know just what the hell his team was passing from hand to hand out there and trying very hard to read when he wasn't walking through the bullpen between his office and the kitchenette, or conferring with one of his men on an actual matter pertaining to their actual caseload.  He didn't much care either, on account of it was damn quiet out there and everyone was very busy looking very busy.  What threatened to drive him crazy were their ridiculous attempts to discuss whatever was on that paper in whispers loud enough to carry to his office but too quiet to actually understand, accompanied by sudden silences and darted glances in his direction. 

          He considered asking them whether it would help if he just stepped out for a while and let them get it out of their system.  Barring that, he considered just shutting the door.  He rather liked the idea of going out there and confiscating the damn paper. 

          Then again, an occasional rousing game of office "Keep Away" was generally good for team spirit and morale. 

          So he ignored it and ignored it some more, until he couldn't stand it any longer, and then he sucked up a breath of air, tied another knot in his rope and ignored it some more.  He was a SEAL goddamn it.  He knew how to sit still and invisible, gathering intel patiently on the down low.  Curiosity killed cats not SEALs.  Eventually, they would have to finish reading it and passing it around.  He could outlast them.  He hadn't taken all that SERE training in psychological warfare and defense for nothing.  That's what he told himself.

          Nathan cracked first, knocking on his doorframe.

          Chris generally left his door open.  Not that it mattered.  Buck generally charged right in, whether the door was closed or not.  J.D. stood outside, lurking, like he was waiting for an invitation to enter, or barring that, trying to decide whether what he had to say warranted going in or not.  Vin often just appeared in one of the chairs opposite his desk, like he had teleported there.  Chris had asked him once whether there shouldn't be just a whiff of brimstone in the air to announce that he had arrived.  Vin had found that way too complimentary for Chris's liking.  Ezra and Josiah both had the habit of clearing their throats and walking in, the difference was that Josiah cleared his throat like a reluctant, regretful and apologetic bearer of bad news, which was no real indication of the tone of the conversation.  Ezra, on the other hand, cleared his throat like it was Chris who ought to be apologizing for the inconvenience of making Ezra walk all the way in here to speak to him.  Nathan knocked politely, and unless there was a bona fide emergency, actually waited for Chris to acknowledge him before entering.  It was one of those little gestures that never failed to remind Chris why he liked Nathan.

          At the moment, Nathan looked troubled.

          Chris signaled "come in" with a motion of his head.  Nathan folded his tall frame down into a chair and hesitated.  Thus, Chris was given to know this was not a matter of their caseload or Bureau business.  Otherwise, Nathan would have started talking before he ever got through the door and wouldn't have bothered sitting down. 

          _What now?_ Chris thought.  Hell, he'd only been at work for an hour and a half, after being falsely accused of intimidation and Buck had barely managed to put his own blatantly stupid and public outbursts behind him.  Neither of these incidents had been particularly helpful to J.D., who was still facing enough trouble to count for all of them.  What kind of trouble could Nathan have got himself into?  Hell, it wasn't even Nathan's turn!

          "What's on your mind?" Chris asked, keeping his voice level and firmly holding his exasperation at bay. 

          Nathan looked a little uncomfortable, which made Chris put his pen down and close the manila folder on his desk. 

          Chris's gaze landed squarely on Nathan's face where it sat unmoving and waiting.

          Nathan squeezed his hands together and spat it out.  "I heard your lawyer on Sandford this morning."

          What looked like a wince passed over Chris's face.  It flitted past so quickly Nathan couldn't be entirely sure, but Larabee's gaze stayed level and inscrutable.  "How'd he do?"

          Nathan felt his own eyes pop just a bit in surprise.  But then it figured.  Chris wouldn't show up for the debate.  Why on earth would he want to listen in on something that affected his own reputation and livelihood?

          "I think he did pretty well," Nathan said.  He hedged.  "Did you know Jacob Wilder comes from the west end?" 

          "I do now," Chris said cryptically—which didn't help answer the question Nathan didn't want to ask.

          Nathan sighed silently.  "That was smart, sending him to debate Cyril D'Aprix.  His understanding of the social issues behind D'Aprix's campaign sorta stole D'Aprix's thunder.  He couldn't get on his soapbox, you know?"

          Chris gave a sardonic sniff that Nathan couldn’t quite interpret.

          Looked like he was going to just have to come out and ask.  "Was that your plan?" he asked.  "I mean if I didn't know better, I'd say that was a pretty ingenious tactic."

          The green eyes narrowed slightly.  "But you know better?" Chris asked.

          "Yes," Nathan blurted out.  "Of course."  The words dribbled out in an embarrassing stream.  "I mean, I can't think you would go out and hire a black lawyer just to make the social issues null and void."

          "Fight fire with fire?" Chris inserted.  "Send a black man to fight a black man over black people's issues?"

          "No!" Nathan blurted out.  That wasn't what he said?  Was it?  "That's not what I meant."

          "It's not?" Chris asked.

          "No!"  Nathan insisted.  But a second later he deflated because actually that really was what he meant.  He tried again.  "I'm not saying it would be wrong.  I'm not saying it wasn't a smart move.  I'm not even saying I wouldn't have done the same in your place.  I'm just saying that the issues aren't just political.  Maybe they don't need to be talked about in this context.  But we do need to talk about them.  Members of all our communities need to sit down and talk about them if we are going to fix any of them."

          Chris sat back.  His lips twitched upward, betraying amusement of all things.  "And you'd hate to think I chose a black man to debate a black man for the sake of public appearance or to imply that all of D'Aprix's issues are just so much bullshit and smoke."

          Nathan bristled.

          "I didn't," Chris inserted into the middle of his inhale. 

          Nathan looked at him.  "You didn't?"

          "Nope."  The smile twitched up a little higher.  "J.D.'s lawyer recommended him and he wanted to take the case.  Accepting the debate was his idea.  He wanted to do it."

          Chris met Nathan's gaze straight on.  "Because in this instance, D'Aprix's social causes are a smokescreen.  Not for D'Aprix, of course.  But for Gillingham and the other lawyers opposing J.D.  Wilder just called bullshit.  In this instance."

          "In this instance," Nathan repeated.

          "In this instance," Chris confirmed.  The smirk returned.  "I think Mr. Wilder is aware of and sensitive to the issues here."

          Then the grin acquired a smart-aleck twist.  "Were you worried?"

          A world of troubles that Nathan might have worried about were implied in that question.

          Nathan snorted. 

          _Yes,_ he admitted silently. But he answered out loud.  "I might have been—if I didn't know better."  Same as he said before.

          "But you do know better?" Chris repeated.

          And Nathan smiled as he realized the answer really was still the same.  "Yes," he said.  "I do."

          Chris eyes reflected the smile back at him.

          Nathan nodded and pressed himself up out of the chair.  "Thanks," he said.

          He was already in Chris's doorway when he heard the request.  "Could you all put that damn piece of paper away and get some work done now?"

          Nathan grinned and kept walking.  Hell, he didn't even know which of his teammates actually had the transcript from Sandford's show anymore.

          He needn't have wondered long, though.  The transcript made an appearance again the very moment Chris was called on to leave the bullpen, making his way out with a warning backward glance at Buck, whose returning "You can count on me," smile did not seem to impress Chris much.  And probably with good reason.

          The transcript came out from its hiding place under Ezra's briefcase with a flourish and came to rest smack on the middle of his desk accompanied by a sound of disgust.

          "He gave the grieving mother his business card as a gesture of sympathy," Ezra said sardonically, indicating the transcript adorning his desk.  "Why, I ask you, should I spend a small fortune lining the pockets of greeting card companies, when my ATF business card apparently says it all?"

          "He'd have been better off keeping his sympathy where it belonged," Buck muttered.

          "Meaning?" Josiah asked into the silence.

          Four sets of eyes flicked over to Sanchez.

          "Meaning," Buck retorted, "if he hadn't approached her at all, then his name wouldn't be in the papers at all, and nobody would have to do damage control over what Chris's moment of stupidity cost all of us, J.D. included."

          "You don't think she deserved a little sympathy?" Josiah asked calmly. 

          Nathan's eyes shot from Josiah to Buck.  No one else spoke.

          Wilmington's blue eyes went flinty.  "You know, far as I can see, she's got plenty of people sympathizing with her.  She doesn't need us, too.  The woman's suing J.D.," he growled out.  "That's about where my sympathy ends." 

          Josiah gave Buck a lengthy penetrating stare.  Nathan knew well enough there was more that the man wanted to say, but he held his peace. 

          Ezra dropped his eyes back to his work as if he had been working all along.  J.D., despite the flaming red of his cheeks, followed Ezra's lead.  Buck scowled back at Josiah until Josiah looked away.  Vin just sat there looking thoughtful, and Nathan wondered if the sharpshooter was pondering the same question he was.  Just what was it Josiah wasn’t saying? 

 

 

          Healey was going to miss this gig. 

          He liked the idea of being hired by a guy with a sure cash flow and an earnings stream projected to increase exponentially, although probably only after he left the Denver area and went off to fight multi-million dollar lawsuits somewhere in Beverly Hills.  In the meantime, Healey had enjoyed being on the payroll.  He liked his retainer fees and the work suited him.  All he had to do was keep doing what he was good at, and keep a low profile.  The skill set had been long established and the low profile came naturally, since he knew all too well the only aspect about him that made much of an impression was his size and the breadth of his shoulders. 

          It wasn't that he didn't have other sources of income or even other people willing to pay him the retainers he asked for, but replacing an income source like Gillingham was going to be more effort than he wanted to go to. 

          Healey signaled the waitress to bring him another cup of coffee and drummed his thick, blunt fingers on the diner table, while his phone rang insistently in his pocket. 

          Gillingham was not one to be kept waiting.

          So he answered the phone.

          "Healey."

          "Where are you?" the familiar voice demanded. 

          Years ago, Healey used to tell trainees that to get the kind of information they were seeking, they needed to ask the right kind of question.  They had been so young then.  Most of them.

          "The Rose Diner," Healey answered bluntly.

          There was a moment of silence on the other end. 

          _Ask a stupid question.._ Healey thought.

          The waitress came with coffee and hurried away.  Healey wasn't one to let smiles actually escape onto his face. 

          "What information do you have for me?"  Gillingham asked, his voice laden with badly-masked contempt, and bald-faced impatience. 

          "I'm putting together the last of my notes," Healey lied, taking a sip of the steaming coffee and feeling it burn a path down his throat, on the way to join the two previous cups he had already enjoyed.  The coffee here was actually quite good.  And the place was open early and late, which was a bonus.  He laid one large hand on the fat manila folder on the bench seat beside him. 

          The Rose also had a regular crowd.  Not a lot of people, but they seemed to come 'round the clock, which could be a benefit or a drawback, depending on what you needed.

          "It's 10:42," Gillingham said testily. 

          Healey looked at his watch.  So it was. 

          There was another silence, and Healey, almost smiled, but not quite. 

          "I expected you earlier this morning," Gillingham said, gone from impatience to irritation.

          _I expect you did,_ Healey thought.

          "I have an early lunch appointment," Healey answered him, growing tired of playing games.  "I can come to your office after that."

          "Lunch appointment?" Gillingham squawked.  "For the kind of retainer I pay you, you can skip lunch and whomever you have waiting for you, and bring me my information when I want it.  Not later," he spat.  "Now."

          It amused Healey that Gillingham would use the size of the retainer against him, when he knew what he was being paid in comparison to Gillingham's other investigators.  He and Gillingham both knew his compensation was fair and no more, and there were higher fees to be obtained.  Of course, Gillingham didn't know Healey knew that.  But Healey was also keenly aware that he no longer wanted to do the kind of work he'd have to do to earn those kinds of fees. 

          Gillingham's pay was reasonable.  And it was steady.  And these days, when the urge to live high on the hog was gone, and when his habits and living requirements had pared themselves down to something almost Spartan, when owning his own time and staying under the radar had taken the place of needing to compete or achieve, steady was nice.

          "I could bring you the file, but it's pretty fat."  Let Gillingham take the offer any way he wanted.

          The response was typical.  "I pay you to go through fat folders so I don't have to," Gillingham growled.

          Healey took another sip of his coffee and waited.

          "I'll expect you here, in my office, no later than noon, with your notes," Gillingham ordered him.  "And you'd better have something of interest to me, or I'll think twice about handing you the next nice, fat job I have.  Or the one after that.  Do you read me?" Gillingham snarled sarcastically.

          "I'll be there at noon," Healey said with a sigh.

          The bell on the diner door jingled.  He looked up at the man who entered. 

          "I gotta go," Healey said into the phone, over top of Gillingham's sputtered reply that whomever he was meeting had better be worth risking his retainer for.

          Money meant a lot more to Gerald Gillingham than it did to most people.  And was farther down Webb Healey's list of priorities than Gillingham would ever understand.

          Healey nodded his head to the man who had just entered, and gestured to the waitress as the man slouched into the bench seat opposite, never taking his hands out of the pockets of his slightly over-sized and well-used grey raincoat, which seemed entirely superfluous considering the warm, clear weather forecast for the day.

          Healey pushed his empty plate out of the way and brushed aside the crumbs before he laid the fat manila folder on the table between them.

 

 

          Gerald Gillingham glowered at his phone as if it were somehow the phone's fault.  For the life of him, he would never understand how someone as dim and thick as Healey made it in this business.  It had to be the man's plodding and methodical nature that helped him succeed.  Maybe the man was just too dense to realize when he was beating his head uselessly against a wall.  Maybe he just kept beating it until something cracked and information leaked out.

          Gillingham didn't know.  He only knew somehow Healey managed to get his job done.  Maybe not as fast as Gillingham would have liked, but so far with surprisingly satisfactory results. 

          Perhaps he did not have a high regard for the man, but he had an appreciation of those results. 

          Nevertheless, it wouldn't hurt to remind Healey who the boss was here and what was expected of employees, including those on retainer.

          Gillingham eyed the clock.  He could worry about that when Healey got here.  In the meantime, he had a few other cases to work on in the next hour or so before meeting with those clients this afternoon.

 

 

          By her first break, Shana felt as if she were all one raw nerve.  Randy was in a foul mood when he walked in, and so far, she had achieved nothing but to make it worses with her repeated attempts to ask him when she could have a few minutes to talk to him.  It made her wish she could drop the subject.  But she couldn't.  And it wouldn't help if Randy was pissed with her when she finally got to talk to him. 

          She sat down in a vinyl chair adorned with electrical tape used to repair a rip in the cushion, and wrapped her hands around a cup of water.

          "How you doin' today?" this from Leona, a girl with bad taste in boyfriends, thankfully balanced by a lucky star that kept her always on the safe side of really getting herself in trouble, or hurt, or both.  She gave Shana an encouraging smile as she went by, and didn't wait for an answer.  Leona might not have been too smart when it came to men, and maybe she really didn't have the brains to finish high school, but she sure was smart enough to know when to stay and chat and when to skim on by.  Maybe that was the lucky star that kept her out of trouble.

          More of Shana's co-workers filed into the tiny breakroom, talking, laughing, and scoffing at some story or other Romero was telling about last night.  Shana finished her cup of water, adjusted her work apron and headed back out to the warehouse for space and quiet.  Somehow the roar of machinery and the slam of crates hitting the cement floor seemed less noisy than the chatter of the people she worked with as they moved too closely around her.

          She took a deep breath and stretched her back.  Then she stumped across the warehouse floor toward the shift supervisor's office to ask again when Randy might have some time available to talk to her.  She was not hopeful.  But she had to ask.

 

 

          Transaction completed, Webb Healey slid a white piece of folded notepaper and the fat file folder along with all it contents across the tabletop to the man in the grey raincoat.  The man took a quick trip through the folder's contents to satisfy himself that it was all there. 

          Healey had told him as much, but he also knew it was the guy's job to make sure.  He watched blandly as the man thumbed through the pages, and mused idly about whether or not anyone would really notice if one memo or another went missing.  Healey was not the type to try to test it out. 

          The man closed the flimsy manila cover and reached back into his pocket.  He slid an envelope across the table, and now it was Healey's turn to make sure it was all there.  Like the man across from him, he knew it would be, but it was still his job to make sure.  He finished counting the bills and gave the man a nod.

          Only then did the man in the raincoat collect the folder from the table and place it securely under his arm.  He stuffed the folded paper into his other pocket.

          "And the documents you copied?" the man asked, almost idly. 

          Healey knew he would ask.  That was part of his job, too. "I'm taking them to Gillingham."  Healey almost smiled as he added.  "A man's got to earn a living."

          The man in the raincoat almost smiled back.

          There was enough in the envelope to tide Healey's modest expenses over for a couple of months at least.

          Plenty of money, but not very steady.

          Healey waited for the man to offer a protest or an admonition or some strong advice against it.  But the man only nodded.  Which was as good as a blessing.

          "And you?"  Healey asked.

          This time the man in the raincoat, did smile.  An almost accidental spasm of lips.  "Don't ask."

          Healey was not surprised at the answer. 

          They did not shake hands as the man left.

          They never shook hands.

          They never called each other by their names.

          And they never spoke unless they were speaking about a job.

          But Healey knew all he needed to know.

          He almost felt bad for Dev Pinchon.  He was so new to the game.  And so bad at it.  And here it was over already.  There was a time when Healey might have felt worse. 

          But thankfully wetwork was a game he had long ago left in the past.

          Dev Pinchon was only going to lose his career.

          _Nobody wins at revenge._   That was something else Healey used to tell the trainees.

          Healey shook his head and paid his tab, with a nice, crisp, new, small bill from his envelope.  He put the envelope back in the pocket of his own, likewise superfluous raincoat and did not stay to collect his change.

          The bell rang behind him as he went out the door.

          He squeezed himself into the driver's seat of his car, and pulled out of his parking spot.

          He laid one big hand on top of his worn old briefcase to keep it from sliding off the street at the next red light.  There was one more fee to collect today.

 

 

          Gillingham checked his watch when Bernadette announced Webb Healey's arrival.  Twelve o'clock.  On time.  Lucky for him.

          "Send him in," Gillingham told her. 

          A few moments later, Healey shouldered his broad frame in through the door, rumpled as usual, and looking like he might have slept in his clothes under a table in a bar somewhere.  Healey was a good deal older than Gillingham, with a bluff plebeian face that bore the reminders of more than one good old-fashioned fist fight, hooded eyes under heavy lids, the kind of bulbous nose that betrayed his peasant ancestry, and a large-boned, hulking frame that spoke of hard work and dirty hands. 

          He was not at all the sort of person Gillingham would have normally associated himself with.  And nothing about his demeanor suggested much of anything of interest went on inside the man's head.  But a fortunate coincidence had brought Healey into Gillingham's sphere of influence.  Healey wasn't quite the dolt his appearance and blunt demeanor seemed to imply.  He was plodding, to be sure, and diligent in his way.  But his results were effective.  And more to the point, he was not nearly as high maintenance or as expensive as either Nira or Amory. 

          "What do you have?" Gillingham asked coming straight to the point.

          Healey stood, not having been invited to sit, and Gillingham wondered if perhaps it didn't even occur to Healey that he could.  Not that Gillingham minded if the man stood.  In his experience, meetings tended to be shorter when people had to stand.

          He looked up at Healey expectantly.

          Healey set a brown briefcase of a style Gillingham could not have pinpointed at being fashionable at any time he could name on one of the chairs pulled up to Gillingham's desk.  He pulled out a short stack of stapled papers and shut the briefcase before Gillingham could even get a curious peek inside.  It had occurred to Gillingham more than once that Healey seemed the type who might carry a gun and the briefcase seemed a good storage place. 

          Healey handed Gillingham the papers.  Photocopies obviously.  There were a lot of highlighted spots.

          "Are these black spots censored?" Gillingham asked in disbelief, holding up a page toward the back.

          Healey shrugged.  "That's how they were in the file."

          "Interesting," Gillingham mused. 

          _It probably was_ , Healey conceded silently.

          "Give me the short version," Gillingham said impatiently.

          Healey didn't tell him that he was holding the short version.  Gillingham just wanted what he called the "executive summary".  What he meant was: _Tell me all the useful parts and only the useful parts, and keep it under five minutes._

          "This is from Larabee's ATF personnel file," Healey said.  "There's no history of intimidating witnesses or harassing complainants."

          Gillingham gave him a baleful stare.

          "However," Healey continued blithely.  "There are a number of complaints of a sort of bullying from other agents and associated offices.  And there are complaints of harassment from various suspects and accessories to crimes under investigation.  Some of them are aimed at Larabee personally.  Some of them are aimed at the team he directs."  Healey shrugged.  "Complaints about Larabee's leadership style."

          Gillingham nodded thoughtfully.  "And the parts that are censored?" 

          "Those date back to Larabee's tenure as a Navy SEAL."

          Gillingham perked up at the sound of that?  "SEAL?  Really?"

          Healey nodded.  "Really."

          "So he was involved in black ops?" Gillingham asked.  He said the words like he really had any idea what they meant.

          "Presumably," Healey answered.  What did Gillingham think the SEALs existed for?  _If they existed,_ Healey smiled at his own little joke, but only on the inside.

          "That's fine.  Fine," Gillingham said to himself, and nodded his head.  "I'd prefer that he'd harassed just a few more witnesses and victims," he mused,  "but I can work with this."

          Healey watched Gillingham through lowered lids.  The wheels turned fast in that head, and Healey could see them rapidly clicking their way toward some kind of attack plan.

          "Clearly, a man with special forces training, a license to carry a concealed weapon, and a reputation for upsetting federal agents and tough criminals alike might appear intimidating to a much smaller woman, even without trying."

          _Except according to the woman, he didn't appear intimidating at all,_ Gillingham noted.  He didn't say it, though.

          "I can get a jury to buy that," Gillingham said cheerfully.  "Once the newspaper story has been discredited."

          He said it like it was already done. 

          Healey just stood there.

          After a moment, it dawned on Gillingham what Healey was waiting for.

          He pulled the envelope from inside a desk drawer and handed it to Healey, who counted it, slowly, and methodically.

          "It's all there," Gillingham said testily.

          Healey just nodded and kept counting until he was satisfied.

          "Next time you make me wait, I start taking my lost time out of your fee," Gillingham snarled.

          Healey just looked at him and said nothing.

          "Do you hear what I'm saying?" Gillingham said nastily.

          Healey nodded.  He heard.  He was going to have to get paid up front if this continued.  He wondered how Gillingham would feel about that.

          "Is that all?" Healey asked finally.

          Gillingham let out a derisive snort.  "You got a hot date?" Gillingham checked his watch.  "At 12:15 in the afternoon?"

          Webb didn't even crack a smile.

          "I hope your business is on that other case I gave you Friday," Gillingham shot at him, as he went out the door. 

          Healey gave no sign that he had heard.

 

 

          Generally speaking, agents tended to avoid the Internal Affairs section of the building just on instinct.  Or sometimes on principle.  Buck was no exception, firmly believing the thick aura of bad karma surrounding the area left a residue that could actually stick to you, like cigarette smoke or a bad smell.  Not that there weren't some pretty IA agents working away in there.  There were.  Just no one pretty enough to overcome his natural aversion, better judgment, and instinct for self-preservation. 

          IA could be a regular pain in the ass.  They had long memories and held onto old suspicions and old grudges longer than they should, and Buck knew he had pulled some stunts they were never ever going to forgive or forget.  They all had.  Among the seven of them, they had given IA far too much reason to be poking around their work and their lives, especially since J.D. shot those boys.

          Buck could hardly be surprised that dread was his knee-jerk reaction when his brief fly-by past their little hive on his way to sign for evidence boxes from an old investigation revealed that the IA offices were a veritable buzz of activity.

          It didn't bode well for someone somewhere. 

          He walked faster, trying to shake off the feeling, but he couldn't stop the wheels in his head.

          By the time Buck was back in the elevator, he was already examining the scuttlebutt and office gossip from the last few weeks, the parts that pertained to Team Seven, which was most of it, and the parts that didn't.  He tried to think about who else, besides J.D., had been involved in a shooting recently, since shootings always got investigated.  He considered recently closed cases where perps might be crying foul.  Ezra came to mind.  He tried to think about agents who pulled stupid stunts they should have known better than to do.  Unfortunately, that still brought him back to Team Seven. 

          He grimaced as the elevator door opened, half expecting to see suits from IA already crawling around the bullpen. 

          But all was normal.

          He carried the boxes into the conference room, where there was more room to sort out the contents.

          Vin followed him in to grab the ballistics evidence. 

          Buck waited until he got close and dropped his voice.  "You know anything about what's going on down in IA?"

          Vin shook his head.  "Nope.  Why?"

          "They're running around down there like ants on a picnic watermelon," Buck said. 

          Vin shrugged.  Then he frowned.  Knowing what was going on in the rest of the building was kind of Buck's unofficial specialty.  The area of expertise not included on his resume.  His special mutant power, as J.D. liked to say.  It was unsettling that Buck didn't know. 

          "Maybe you ought to go on a fact-finding tour," Vin suggested.

          Buck looked at him.  He had considered that, but whenever IA was involved, his gut told him to lay low.  It was better to send out an innocuous looking scout in a situation like this.  Usually that meant J.D.  Until recently, no one was ever suspicious of J.D. for any reason.  Right now, the kid had already had far too much of IA's attention.

          Ezra was sneaky enough, but his own experience with trumped-up charges during his tenure with the FBI in Atlanta had left him sort of twitchy about Internal Affairs everywhere.

          As for Nathan, well, as Ezra would put it, Jackson lacked a "certain subtlety", which was a damn sight better than Ezra's term for either Buck or Josiah.  They were both rated as downright "rude".

          "You wanna go for a walk?" Buck asked Vin.

          Vin snorted, which was Tanner for "No".

          "Chris in?"  Buck asked carefully.

          Vin looked coolly back at Buck.  "He was a minute ago."

          Buck nodded. 

          "Why?"

          Buck shrugged.  "Just don't got a good feeling, that's all.  IA makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck.  An' I like to know where everybody is when they start sniffin' around."

          Vin cracked a lopsided grin.  "And they think Larabee's the mother hen…"

          "Shut up," Buck growled.  He handed Vin the sealed plastic bags and the full ballistics reports.  "Here.  Get busy."

          Buck hadn't been back in his own desk chair ten minutes, had barely had enough time to get absorbed in his work, had hardly achieved enough distance and perspective to shake his head at his paranoid suspicions about IA, when Orin Travis appeared in the bullpen door.

          "Chris in?" Travis asked.

          Six heads picked up simultaneously and twelve eyes all looked helpfully in the direction of the team leader's office.  Chris looked up from his desk.

          Orin entered.  At his heels was a woman in a tailored suit, identification hanging around her neck.

          _Goddammit!_ Buck stiffened in his chair. 

          So did J.D.

          They had only met Special Agent Pulaski once, but she was the kind of woman who made an impression.

          Travis and Pulaski stood together in the doorway to Chris's office.

          "Agent Larabee," Pulaski said with crisp and official courtesy. 

          Buck shifted his head far enough to be able to see Chris's answering lifted eyebrow.  He looked warily from Pulaski to Orin.

          "You remember Special Agent Pulaski," Travis said. 

          Chris nodded.  "Internal Affairs," he answered.

          Travis nodded.

          "There's a matter we need to discuss with you," Pulaski said.  She glanced back at the six rapt faces behind her and added, "It's of a somewhat sensitive nature."

          Orin grimaced as the six faces stayed unabashedly glued on the doorway. 

          "You need to come with us," Orin said pointedly.

          Chris's eyes flicked again between Travis and Pulaski, the look he gave them downright suspicious. 

          He didn't say a word but got up from behind his desk and gestured to Orin to lead the way.

          He caught Buck's eye on the way out.

          "Don't wait dinner for me," Chris said drily.

          Buck might have appreciated the smirk on Larabee's face more at some other time.  Between what Buck knew about Larabee in general and what Chris or the rest of them had done lately, Buck didn't put it past IA to be pursuing any of a number of possible problems, real or fabricated.  Whatever IA was on Chris's case for this time, it seemed like they'd all had too much trouble lately for Chris to be so damn hardheaded right now. 

 

 

          The word "overkill" came to mind as Chris followed Travis and Pulaski around another corner, farther and farther away from all the other offices, cubicles, restrooms, water coolers, and just about any place where any other human being might be reasonably expected to appear. 

          "I hear the subbasement isn't used much," Chris offered. 

          Granted, it was hard to tell from the back, but Travis did not appear to appreciate his humor much.

          "Believe me, we'd go there if I thought it was necessary," Pulaski said, and hell if she didn't sound like she was serious.

          They went down two more floors to a hallway that looked like it was serving mainly as a staging area for transferring filing cabinets and office equipment between offices.  They walked past two hand-trucks and an upended metal desk to stop at a locked door located near the center of a row of identical four-drawer filing cabinets standing smartly at attention along one wall, keys uniformly taped to the upper right side of the associated unit like a series of good conduct ribbons.

          It was an odd place for a meeting.  If a suspect invited Ezra off to a meeting like this on an undercover assignment, Chris would tell him in no uncertain terms not to go.  If Chris were still in the Navy and this were a pre-op briefing, he could be pretty sure they were going to ask him to deal with or even do some nasty shit.  If he were still in the Navy and these were a pair of hostiles about to interrogate him, it would be a sure bet he was about to _be_ in some really deep shit. 

          Because it was Orin and a rather high-ranking agent from Internal Affairs, Chris wasn't entirely sure what was going on, but chances were either he was in really deep shit—or one of his men was.  Neither thought was particularly appealing.  But if he had a choice—well, he'd been in deep shit before.  And, no matter what anyone said, he might have regrets, but he could not look back on anything he had done that he was actually ashamed of or that was actually prosecutable.  And if they fired his ass, he doubted it would take him long to launch a new career.

          So, on the whole, he wasn't particularly worried. 

          Just very wary.

          If the furniture adorning the hallway outside hadn't been a dead giveaway, one glance around the interior of the tiny office would have told him that no one worked in this room.  A metal desk was shoved against one wall.  There were no chairs.  There were marks on the white painted walls, showing where furniture or maybe shelves or even pictures had once been.  But the office had been vacant long enough that it even smelled dusty.

          Chris entered last, shutting the door as Pulaski requested.  He stood and waited, while Pulaski and Travis faced him.

          Pulaski took a long breath and began.  "There's no easy way to say this," she said.  "Your confidential personnel file has been compromised."

          This was not what Chris was expecting.

          He stared at her.  And replayed the words in his head.

          "My file?" he asked, sounding stupid to his own ears.

          "Your confidential file," she repeated.  "All of it.  The entire file."

          He blinked.  "What do you mean compromised?"

          Orin shifted his feet and cleared his throat uncomfortably.

          "Someone duplicated the entire file yesterday and took the copies out of the building," Pulaski said.

          Chris squinted at her.  Orin watched him warily, and Chris tried really hard not to sound like he was interrogating her.

          "For what purpose?" he asked.  He had never actually asked to see his own file, but he had a pretty good idea about what kind of information was in it.  Aside from the mind-numbing bureaucratic documentation of edicts and orders and trainings passed, of course, there were details from his days with the DPD.  There was a certain amount of documentation about his naval career.  There was a certain amount of personal information.  He swallowed.

          Pulaski looked uncomfortable.  "This person," she said carefully, which told Chris she knew exactly who had done it, "appears to have accepted money in exchange for turning over your file to an investigator working for Gerald Gillingham, the attorney for—"

          "I know who Gillingham is," he cut her off.  He stared at her, his thoughts spinning in so many directions, he wasn't even sure what tack to take.

          "The file has been retrieved," Pulaski said hurriedly.  "And we are taking steps to deal with the person who we believe is responsible."

          She licked her lips.  "We trust our informant implicitly," she said.  "But even assuming he is telling the full truth, we still can't be one hundred percent certain what information has been handed over to Gillingham."

          Travis cut in.  "We have to assume that any information in that file has potentially been made public."

          One hand came up almost absently to cut Travis off as Chris turned away toward a blank wall.  He put his head down to gather his thoughts.

          Just for starters, his name and address were potentially in the wind.  His career resume.  His conduct in the Navy, DPD, and the ATF, potentially, commendations, and reprimands both.  The Navy.  Someone was going to have to alert the Navy, so some pencil pusher could make sure they didn't give the ATF anything that was potentially classified.  Then there was information pertaining to his team, the men he hired and who trusted him to watch their back.

          He cut off the swear words that leaped to mind and turned to face them.  "I'm going to need to see the file," he said.

          "It's all there," Pulaski said.

          He narrowed his eyes.  "You're one hundred percent sure about that?" he asked icily.

          She took a deep breath.  "I can bring the file to you."  Her voice was calm, and he supposed she was trying to be cooperative.  But the empty office and the offer to bring him files made it perfectly clear to Chris that her agenda, whatever it was, intended to keep him out of IA and personnel.

          He gave her a long hard stare.

          Travis, quick as ever, must have read it the same as Chris—only he was backing Pulaski on this point.  "Having you in the IA offices or personnel right now will only make matters more…" Orin searched for the right word and settled on "complicated."

          Chris's stare didn't get any softer when it turned on him.  "Do I get to know who threw me under the bus?" he asked.

          Travis and Pulaski looked at each other. 

          "At this point, no," Travis said. 

          So Travis knew, too.

          "Suffice it to say we know who did it and appropriate steps are being taken," Pulaski answered.

          Chris's answering smile was nasty and entirely mirthless.  "I'm not sure that we have the same definition of appropriate steps."

          "Chris…," Travis warned.

          "I need to see that file," Chris said.  "And one of you needs to talk to the Navy just in case they have some i's that didn't get dotted or t's that didn't get crossed.  Or words that didn't get blacked out." Chris added none too subtly.

          "I'll do that," Travis said.

          Chris wondered if the offer was supposed to mollify him.

          "You'll probably want to call your lawyer," Pulaski suggested. 

          _Again,_ Chris thought sourly.

          Pulaski's hands came out from her side.  "IA and personnel both deeply regret this happened and we are taking all appropriate steps to ensure that…"

          "Save it," Chris snapped.  Save it for someone who was likely to believe a bureaucracy was capable of even figuring out what appropriate steps to take, let alone taking them in any kind of a timely manner.

          "I don't want an apology," he said.  "We've got a problem and you need to start fixing it."

          Pulaski nodded. 

          Travis looked grim.

          "I'll bring you the file."  She hesitated and looked at Orin.  "Where should I deliver it?"

          "My office," Chris said tersely.

          Pulaski looked surprised.

          He smiled nastily.  "It'll be safer there."

          "Done," Pulaski said, not rising to the bait.  "You'll have it within the hour."

          Chris looked at Orin, the clench of his jaw clearly visible.  "Any other good news you want to tell me while I'm down here?"

          Orin excused the tone by reminding himself that under the circumstances, Chris was behaving himself impressively well. 

          Orin shook his head.  He looked at Pulaski.  "We have a lot of work to do," he said.

          Chris gave Pulaski another withering glare.  "Within the hour," he muttered derisively as he went out the door.

          Pulaski's calm reserve cracked a little as Larabee disappeared.  "That went reasonably well," she said, but her smile was a little anemic.

          Travis only grunted.  Chris hadn't throttled her or threatened her with bodily harm.  So, yes, in that sense, it went well. 

          On the other hand, another heavy-duty nail had been driven quite firmly into the coffin of Larabee's distrust of bureau procedures and policies.  Perhaps, he amended, more like another knife in Chris's back.  He knew Pulaski would come to realize that herself, eventually, when doing damage assessment after the fact.  She didn't need him to point it out.

          So he didn't.

          He left the small office and began mentally totting up his new to-do list.  Starting with "Tell Evie he would be home late," followed immediately by "Call D.C."  In Orin's experience, he had never yet had to call the Pentagon for a good reason.  He didn't expect they much appreciated hearing from him either.

 

 

          In Buck's opinion, Chris returned from wherever IA had dragged him off to in record time, and the moment Buck saw his face, he started counting the seconds until the obligatory bellow. 

          He didn't have to count long.  However, he wasn't sure that the guttural way Chris growled out "Buck" from between his teeth really qualified as an obligatory bellow. 

          Buck really, really hoped his name had not come up at any point in Chris's conversation with IA.  He also hoped that Chris was not about to tell him his one day in the office was up and he was heading back home to the Ranch to serve out another suspension, because Buck wanted to do Chris's job for another week about as much as he wanted a sharp stick in the eye.

          "Shut the door," Chris ordered the instant Buck got within snarling distance.

          Buck closed the office door behind him.  But that didn't mean he was letting Chris off easy.  "What'd you do?" he asked, not bothering with civility.

          The glare Chris gave him could have stopped a charging elephant, but he would have to do better than that if he wanted to fend Buck off.  Half a lifetime of Larabee glares was enough to thicken Buck's skin.  That and a natural talent for determinedly not giving a shit.

          "I didn't do anything," Chris bit out.

          "Yeah?  That's what you said before they suspended you for that other thing you didn't do," Buck pointed out.

          Chris, however, had half a lifetime of ignoring Buck's jibes.  That and a natural talent for not getting distracted from the goal.

          "IA's bringing my personnel folder up here," Chris announced right over him.  "Someone in this building copied it and sold the information inside it to Shana Morton's lawyer."

          Buck's expression totally changed in an instant.  His eyebrows shot up and his mouth dropped open.

          Buck was quick.  Chris would give him that.  He followed the sudden shift in the track without a flaw, jumping rails almost before the words died out on the office air.  But that was just one of many skills Chris counted on him for. 

          Chris didn’t wait to hear Buck's reply.  Enough time had been wasted, and he still couldn't wrap his head around what incompetence or bureaucratic idiocy was the reason he couldn't have the damn folder in a time frame a whole lot faster than "within the hour".  It would take him a lot less time to go down there and pry it out of the hands of whomever was holding it hostage while they covered their department and their department head's ass over letting this happen.

          "IA considers all of it to be potentially compromised," Chris continued.  No point in delaying the rest of the bad news.  He stared hard at Buck.  "All of it."

          Buck's mouth opened again.  And shut.  And opened. 

          Chris saved him the trouble of formulating an appropriate response by telling him, "I don't need to tell you that there's plenty of information in there involving you, too."

          Apparently the appropriate response finally presented itself. 

          "Shit," said Buck.  Then "Fuck" and "Damn" followed by several creative combinations of all three.

          "Who would do that?" Buck finally asked in disbelief.  Then he looked at Chris and changed his mind about his investigative approach.  "What did you do to make someone want to do that to you?"

          It seemed a better question. 

          Reading the look on Chris's face, Buck put up a hand in a hurry just to keep Chris from repeating the "I didn't do anything," he could already hear coming.

          As to how someone could hate Larabee that much?  Well, Chris was just naturally talented that way. 

          "Ask a stupid question…," Buck muttered loud enough for Chris to hear. 

          In Buck's experience, people were either willing to follow Chris right through hell and out the other side or they wanted to make sure he rotted there good and proper.  Maybe sometimes both.  Sometimes it got a little confusing.

          Buck went back to the old standby.  "Fuck," he said and sat down in a chair.

          Chris rolled his eyes in general agreement.  "I need to look through the folder and see just how badly the team is compromised."

          Buck thought about hiring memos and training memos, or a hundred other details pertaining to team personnel and their conduct that ended up in a Team Leader's folder.

          "Fuck," Buck said again, this time with even more feeling.  "When you gonna tell the rest of the team?"

          Chris shrugged and gestured one hand toward the door.  "Well, IA promised it would take less than an hour to bring the folder all the way up from their floor to ours."  He didn't even attempt to temper his sarcasm.  "I have to finish assessing the potential damage before I tell anyone anything." 

          "And then?" Buck asked.

          "You'll be the first to know," Chris answered curtly.

          Buck stomped hard on the derisive snort that shot out of him at that, but not fast enough to avoid the Larabee hairy eyeball. 

          Chris nodded at the door.  And Buck glowered back at him just to make a point.  But he left.

          Five faces looked over at him expectantly.  It wasn't like he could tell them. _Hey, no worries.  Someone stole Chris's confidential personnel folder and your information is all in the wind.  And we won't know how bad it is for another couple of hours.  But hey, at least we're not in trouble with IA, right?_

          So he just shrugged and went back to the work on his desk.  And then, after tossing pointed looks and a lot of generally eyeballing each other, the rest of the team followed suit.

          In the quiet, Buck looked at J.D. and thought about that personnel folder and all its contents out there in the hands of Shana Morton's slimy lying-bastard lawyer.

          _Fuck,_ he thought again. 

          But he didn't say it out loud. 

 

 

          It took IA almost the entire hour to finally send up the folder.  Chris was tempted to send it back and tell them they could go through the folder and look for compromising information themselves.  It was their damn mess.  They could clean it up.  But the truth was he didn't trust them to be competent enough to recognize compromising information when they saw it.  So, he resented it, but he picked his way through his entire folder, made lists and called his men in one by one.  Eating up his afternoon with damage assessment, since there was no damage control yet, while the his real work, the open cases sitting there on his desk got a little older and a little colder. 

          One by one, five more times he explained what had happened to his folder in the briefest possible terms.  Vin was dumbfounded.  Ezra counted a new addition to his list of reasons never to trust Internal Affairs with anything important.  Nathan was shocked.  Josiah's thunderous look had  "smite" written all over it until he rolled his eyes up to heaven like he was expecting an answer.  Maybe he got one. Chris didn't know, but sure enough, Josiah heaved a deep resentful sigh and left the office looking more resigned than wrathful.  J.D. was downright disbelieving, like he thought there was some kind of mistake or this was some kind of tasteless joke.  He abandoned that idea quickly under the influence of Chris's grim stare.

          If Team Seven had been a normal team it wouldn't have been this bad to begin with.  Unfortunately, the Denver ATF had demanded special documentation of the hiring process for this new kind of team.  They anticipated a spectacular failure, and positioned themselves to point fingers self-righteously at Orin and Chris when they told the powers that be "I told you so".  Except for that, Chris wouldn't have had to talk to any of his teammates at all.  This would have been a non-problem for everyone else. 

          Chris was just thankful it wasn't worse. 

          The memos between himself and Travis and the FBI regarding the corruption charges that had been hanging over Ezra's head when Chris pulled him out of Atlanta to be the team's undercover agent were at least old news, even if Ezra winced every time they came to light.  The worst part was the way Ezra reminded him appearances of misconduct could be just as damaging as actual misconduct once word got out to the public, followed by a none-too-subtle reminder that Chris ought to know just what he meant.

          Josiah was easy, as the worst information pertaining to Josiah had to do with a vague reference to a moment in his distant military career when he busted someone's nose in a fit of anger having something to do with a woman, and even vaguer allusions to Josiah's formidable temper.  The temper part was true, of course.  But Chris didn't bring that up since it wasn't documented in Chris's file.

          It was a bit worse for Nathan.  Chris's file had contained a short set of memos expressing Travis's uncertainty about several admittedly questionable social and political action groups to which Nathan belonged or contributed money, and about which Chris had baldly stated—if you read between the lines anyway—that he didn't give a shit. 

          Buck's name was everywhere, all over Chris's DPD records, the police reports from Sarah and Adam's murder, and two documents from the Navy, of which duplicates were in Buck's file.  But Buck knew all that anyway.  He was the first person Chris asked to join the team.  And if he hadn't been involved in the memo-writing, he had certainly been involved in the discussions as Chris had selected the men for the team. 

          Chris talked to J.D. last.  Not that there was a whole lot for him to talk to J.D. about.  J.D.'s short career with the police had been unremarkable, and, in Chris's opinion, a complete waste of Dunne's immense brains and talent.  It was no surprise to Chris or anyone else on the team that Gillingham couldn't disparage Dunne directly.  There was nothing to disparage. 

          However, there was one item of concern: a discussion of age waivers in order to bring J.D.'s expertise to the team.  It was funny, Chris thought, how dubious he had been about why he should hire this young cop, who sat way too bright-eyed in the chair across from Chris and all but begged Chris to hire him on.  Buck told him not to, said the kid's inexperience and overenthusiasm would be a liability waiting to happen.  But Chris's head told him J.D. had skills they needed and his gut told him this kid had something the team needed. 

          Plus it would give Buck someone else to mother hen.  So Chris hired him.  It worked beautifully, too, all of it.  Buck's reservations turned quickly from doubtful acceptance to whole-hearted enthusiasm.  He took J.D. right under his big wing.  And J.D. more than proved himself as his skills and talents continued to add to the Team's capabilities and success. 

          Now Chris had to tell the kid that because some asshole, motivated by either greed or a grudge, had sold Chris's file to Gerald Gillingham, he could potentially have to face a round of questioning regarding his professional competence at the time of training due to being chronologically younger than the ATF standard. 

          _Sorry, Kid, under normal circumstances this would be a moot point and in three or four more years no one's going to care, but since you're being sued now, it might come up as a problem._

          Meanwhile, there was J.D. staring at him like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop, like maybe he had done something wrong and had been called in here because Chris wanted to ream him out.

          Maybe Buck had been right all those times he called Chris an asshole. 

          J.D. took the news well.  The corners of his mouth turned down to have yet another piece of bad news dropped on his head.  Chris told J.D. if Gillingham wanted to use this informationit, it would be a thin gambit at best.  Chris also reminded J.D. that Frank Lawton was a smart lawyer.  And there was plenty of documentation supporting J.D.'s exemplary performance of his duties with the ATF and his up-to-date certifications and qualifications.  Still, J.D. had a right to know it was quite possibly out there in Gillingham's hands.

          J.D. nodded, looking grim.  He took it on the chin and then he left.

          Which didn't make Chris feel any less of an asshole—even if, technically, he still hadn't done anything wrong.

 

 

          Randy was eating dinner in the supervisor's office when he finally found time to talk to Shana.

          "My wife's away," he said by way of excuse, wiping a bit of extra tasty crispy coating off the corner of his mouth with a grease-stained paper napkin. 

          Randy often took a second shift when his wife went out of town.  He said they could use the extra money.  Shana was pretty sure Randy just didn't like to go home to a house without his wife in it, which was one of the few endearing qualities about him, in Shana's opinion.  On the other hand, he was a decent supervisor, more decent than many, which was really all she needed to know about him.

          He pushed a set of papers off a nearby chair and onto a low filing cabinet, with one hand, which proved to take some effort as the chair tended to swivel and Randy's red and white box of KFC threatened to slide right off his lap.

          Shana wrinkled her nose.  "That'll kill you," she said, pointing at the box.

          Giving the papers a final shove to make sure they sat securely, Randy grinned and replied, "But I'll go happy."

          Shana knew enough to know that Randy's wife didn't let him eat like that.  And given the spare tire showing around Randy's waist, the woman was probably mostly concerned about keeping him around a while longer. 

          "If you want to die happy," Shana said, "then I got a place you probably ought to go to instead.  It'll still kill you, but at least its real down-home food."

          Randy's face said he was plenty interested, but his lips said, "I doubt you been nagging after me all day because you wanted to tell me what to eat for dinner."

          Shana smiled slightly.  "No."  Then her smile faded.  "I could use your help."

          Randy's own smile faded, and for a moment he looked downright worried.  But he hid it well.  "What do you need?" he asked.  "I'll do the best I can within my professional capacity."

          She noted his disclaimer with some amusement, but she understood.  Employees asked all kinds of ridiculous favors from shift supervisors, some of them personal, and some of them the kind of stupid that could get a person in real trouble.  Randy needn't have worried about her.

          She took a deep breath.  "Can you get information about positions in other states?"

          Randy looked relieved for just a split second.  Then the corners of his mouth turned down, but his voice stayed flat and professional.  "Yes, I can.  What are you looking for?"

          Shana gave him a small smile of appreciation, but she knew it was tainted with more than a smudge of unhappiness.  This wasn't how she had planned her life to go either.  But she refused to think about that right now.

          Randy cleared his throat, set the chicken and fries aside, and gestured for her to sit down in the chair he had worked so hard to clear off.  Then he woke up the desktop computer.

          "Sit down," he said.  He looked at the clock.  "You on break?" he asked.  "This is going to take a few minutes."

          "Yes," Shana answered.  "Thank you."  She pulled a paper from her pocket and sat down, rolling the chair to a point where she could see the screen a little more clearly.  She clutched the paper in her hand.  It bore a list of options she had thought through last night and again this morning.  It was with her now in case she got cold feet or forgot to include all the possibilities.

          Randy's fat fingers flew across the keys and clicked through several screens while she used a stray pen to write down the location and phone number for Ruby Dee's on a lime green Post-it from the plastic holder beside the paper clips.  It was the least she could do, really. 

          Later, after her shift had ended, Shana waited outside on the cement, watching the lights go down in Ruby Dee's.  Through the painted glass logo on the window, she could make out the three figures moving around each inside.  At last, the slenderest figure, by far, detached itself from the others and moved toward the door.

          The door jingled as Kierra exited calling "'Night y'all," back over her shoulder as she came out onto the walk.  She smiled when she saw Shana.

          "Hey, girl!" she said, as if this were nothing more than a casual get-together between friends.

          Kierra looked tired.

          There was a plastic shopping bag under her arm, and Shana could see the regular edges of take-out boxes and containers inside it.

          Shana pointed at the bag.  "You got other plans?" she asked with a wry smile.

          Kierra shrugged and rolled her eyes.  "Clio won't serve leftovers and the food's just gonna go bad."

          It was a nice show of exasperation, but Shana could see the way Kierra's eyes got a little red.

          Clio didn't much like having to pay Kierra under the table in cash from the drawer, but the woman had no qualms whatsoever in giving out food.  Ky and Kierra ate—used to eat—an awful lot of take-out from that restaurant.  And Ty had eaten more than his fair share of it, too.

          _Give it to the boy,_ Clio used to grunt out, as if she didn't much care what Kierra did with it, or whether "the boy" got it or not. 

          Shana shifted her feet.

          "Guess she forgot," Kierra said suddenly, and sucked in a hard breath.

          Shana snaked an arm around her friend's shoulder.

          "Come on," she said and pointed to her car.

          It was bad enough when Shana set that place at the table, or stopped to knock before going into that empty bedroom.  It was harder to remember to not flinch or to be patient or understanding when someone else, some co-worker started to ask a stupid question or tell some cute story—or worse yet complain—about their own kid.  But the moment when they realized what they had said, when their eyes got wide and their hands fluttered up to their mouths, like they could somehow put the words back, that was the part that hit Shana like a stab to the gut.  Then there was the mail.  Evidently mailing lists don't pay attention to the news.  She dreaded the day some casual acquaintance who had been away on the moon or somewhere asked her in all ignorance, "How's your son doing?".  It was bound to happen.  And she didn't know how she would answer without embarrassing them both when she burst into tears.

          Kierra buckled herself in and balanced the bag of food on her lap.  She peeked inside.  "There's plenty here for three," she said.

          Shana imagined there was.  Ruby Dee's wasn't known for being stingy with their food.  She hadn't met Ruby Dee but a year before the old woman passed on, but Clio seemed to be carrying on her stated motto of "If you leave the table hungry, it's your own dang fault."

          Shana didn’t say that.  She just accepted the invitation.  "Great!  Mama'll like that."  She glanced across the seat at Kierra.  "And she'll be happy to see you again."

          Kierra smiled, and Shana turned back to face the road.  It was true.  Shana's mother appreciated good cooking in any form, and she liked Kierra and appreciated that Shana had had a friend here all this time. 

          But if Kierra thought having Shana's mother at the table was going to forestall this conversation, then Kierra was going to be disappointed.

          "That reporter done a good job on Ty's article," Kierra said suddenly.  Shana flicked her eyes over, but Kierra was staring straight ahead down the road.

          "I like what you said," she added.  There was a pause.  Then Kierra asked, "Did you think it was good?"

          Shana swallowed.  "Yeah, it was good."

          "How's your cousin Jaday, doin'?" Shana asked, changing the subject. 

          Kierra looked at her startled and then burst out in a laugh that was more like a cackle.

          There were a fair number of crazies and fools among Kierra's people both here and still down south.  And if they had to talk about something on the way back to Shana's apartment, this felt safer.

          "Mama," Shana called as they came through the door.

          Kierra stopped just inside the living room, in front of the article about Ty, hanging on the wall, matted in an African print and framed in a warm, glowing mahogany.

          "It's nice," Kierra said quietly, wistfully.

          Shana was silent for a second.  "Thank you.  Mama did it."

          "I'll tell her," Kierra said.

          Shana smiled and leaned closer to whisper.  "She's finishing one for you, too."

          This time there really were tears in Kierra's eyes. 

          But Shana waved her off before she could speak.  "You ain't supposed to know."

          "Oh."  Kierra's mouth formed the word silently.

          Shana took the bag from her and hurried into the kitchen, putting space between them, wondering why she hadn't realized just how damn hard this was going to be, and why she had been such a fool as to think just 'cause Kierra was surrounded by kin scattered around that it was gonna be any easier.  She gripped the edge of the kitchen table hard, as a sharp pang in her gut reminded her it was kin that had persuaded Kyle to carry a gun into a store and try to rob it.

          She heard her mother behind her, feet whispering as they shuffled on the worn linoleum.  She was in her robe.

          "We got company, Mama," Shana said.

          A gnarled hand shot up toward her hair, while the other fingered the collar of her robe.  "Why didn't you call and tell me?" she demanded.

          "It's Kierra, Mama," Shana said tiredly.  "Not some stranger.  And if you'd hollered back when I called for you, then I coulda told ya."

          "I don't care who it is, you give some warning before you bring anybody into this house," her mother said tartly.

          Kierra had wandered into the hall and stood there looking at both of them.

          "Shoot," Kierra said loudly, and Shana's mother turned.  "I been workin' in a chicken joint all day and I smell like fry grease.  If you ain't ashamed to sit at the table with me, then I don't mind if you just stay comfortable."

          That gnarled hand turned palm up and caressed Kierra's cheek.  "Sweet child," Shana's mother said.  And it reminded Shana of lemonade from a powdered mix and white laundry hanging in the sun. 

          Shana had long ago stopped being jealous when her mama said those words to someone else.  Depending on the someone, anyway.

          Then dark eyes turned sharply back to Shana.  "It's still polite to give a person some warning," the old woman said.

          "Come sit down," Shana ordered, pulling out the chairs beside her.  "The food's gettin' cold."  They would eat first.  Maybe by the time they finished, Shana would have figured out how to begin. 

          She put a stack of plates on the table, and Kierra started pulling take-out containers from the bag.

          Her mother let out a soft grunt as she slid across the wooden chair, the seat polished with age and use. 

          Shana considered that if she waited long enough, her mother would begin it for her. 

          She ran tap water into a glass and firmed her resolve. 

          She didn't want it to happen that way.  She had done a lot of hard tasks recently that she hadn't imagined having to do.  She could do this one, too.

          After the silence of eating and the effort of strained conversation, there came a point when the distractions were over.  Shana's mother started to stack up the dishes. 

          "Leave that," Shana ordered, more sharply than she had intended to.  "I'll take care of it."

          She turned to Kierra and took a deep breath.  The time was here.  She was out of delays.  And she still didn't know where to begin. 

          She scrabbled for a way to begin, but her mouth apparently had other ideas.

          "Come with us," Shana blurted out.  It sounded plaintive.  Like they were little girls and she was afraid to face some situation alone.

          Which was probably half the truth.

          Kierra looked startled.  Shana could not blame her, since Shana hadn't yet told her anything useful and Kierra had no idea what she was talking about.

          "I'm moving back to my mama's house," Shana said before she lost her resolve.

          Kierra's eyes opened even wider and Shana flinched inwardly at the hurt she saw.

          She grabbed Kierra's hand.

          "Come with us," she said hurriedly.  "You can stay at the house until you find a place.  I got some jobs lined up."  Her tongue ran ahead of her, breathless.  "Well, I got a list of jobs available and Randy's gonna put in a good word.  You can start fresh, too, get a decent job, without—" She stopped abruptly, mouth dry, tongue stuck. 

          Without what?  Memories hanging over her?  Reminders at every corner?  Being tied down by reputations and rumors, tainted by ties to people like Radim.  It was no accident about Radim.  That whole branch of the family had gone bad, but Kierra didn't like to hear bad talk about her people.  And Shana had been flayed by Kierra's sharp tongue more than once for expressing her opinions about what ”ain't your business." 

          Shana realized with cold shock that it really had been her business, and if she'd been more vigilant about that business, she damn well would have put a stop to Ty hanging out with Radim—and with Ky, too, if it had come to that.

          Belatedly she realized that Kierra had spoken.  She tried and failed to capture the words out of her memory.

          "Maybe you can just up and walk away," Kierra snapped, and Shana scrambled to catch up.  "But I got family here.  I can't just leave," Kierra snapped.  Then a thought seemed to occur to her.  "You can't just up and leave either," she said.  "We got a lawsuit to finish, 'less you forgot."

          Something must have shown in Shana's face. 

          She flinched at Kierra's sudden glower.

          A warm, strong hand, bent with age, crawled into Shana's own under the table.

          "I'm dropping the suit," Shana said.

          The words seemed to echo like thunder into the sudden, frosty silence.

          Kierra's eyes went cold and hard, but it took her another moment to find her voice.

          "You're dropping the suit?"  She asked the question like a judge just making sure that he'd got the confession written down right before he packed his prisoner off to life in prison—or the electric chair. 

          "Kierra—" Shana tried to answer, stumbling, and failing.

          Kierra had no such problem.  Her voice rose higher and higher with anger and disbelief with each sentence.  "You can't just drop the suit.  That man killed our boys and Radim too.  You can't just walk away from that.  You can't just let him get away with it.  You can't."

          Shana reached across the table to grab Kierra's hands, but Kierra yanked them away from her, holding them out and away like Shana's touch was poison.  She tossed her head like a wild creature.  Her chair banged against the kitchen wall.  She looked at Shana's mother.

          Shana jumped back in with both feet.

          "They robbed that store!"  She was nearly shouting.  "You know it.  Our boys went to a store to rob it.  That cop killed them doing his job."

          Kierra shook her head crazily like it wasn't true.

          And Shana deliberately forced herself not to hear her own words.  She couldn't afford to be distracted by the voice inside her that was shrieking out "Not Tyson.  Tyson wouldn't have.  Tyson couldn't have." 

          "That man's lawyer is going to tell the whole world every fool, stupid, or wrong thing that Radim and Kyle and Tyson ever did in their whole lives.  He's going to turn them into thugs and gangbangers and stone cold killers.  And that's what people are going to remember."

          She moved around the table.

          "There ain't nothing nobody can say or do to bring Tyson back.  Or Kyle.  But I won't sit by and let anyone trash his memory.  Not for any reason."

          She reached for Kierra again and pleaded.  "Dropping the suit is the only way I got left to protect my child."

          Shana refused to look away, most especially not at her mother, sitting at the table, eyes squeezed shut now and one hand over her mouth. 

          Kierra backed up a step, and they stood there like that, Shana in mid-reach and Kierra holding her hands up and away, frozen, until tears spilled suddenly out of Kierra's brown eyes, running down her face in a tiny flash-flood.

          Kierra's voice pleaded with her.  "We need you to win this."  The words cracked, riddled with air, and Shana felt her own throat ache with understanding.

          She'd meant to sound rational, asking "But what are you going to win?"  Instead it came out more like a whine.  A child begging for something it had been refused. 

          Kierra stiffened.  She banged up against the edge of the counter.  And Shana watched her deflate, still wagging her head from side to side, holding onto the counter behind her, and then sagging against it like someone had poked a hole in her and let the air out.

          Shana bit down on her lip.

          She took one step closer.  Kierra looked back at her with eyes that had somehow deflated, too.  Shana hurt for the expression there, left behind when the anger escaped.

          The air made a loud, undignified snoring sound as Kierra sucked in a breath.  She dragged the back of her hand across her nose, leaving a glistening trail of tears and moisture across the smooth brown skin.

          She hiccupped out a sob. 

          And Shana knew just exactly what Kierra had looked like at fourteen.  Beautiful.  Untamed.  And all that sass to cover up for being afraid. 

          It was hard to be sassy with a tear-tracked face and snot on the back of her hand. 

          And Shana could barely understand the words as Kierra choked out.  "You can't leave me."

          Shana's heart heard them loud and clear, though.  And in the next second Kierra was in her arms.  Snot be damned, she held on fiercely.

          _Come with us,_ Shana thought hard enough that she hoped maybe Kierra would hear her and agree.  She doubted it, though.  Family was a powerful tie. 

          And now that her mama was all Shana had left, it was the very reason she was going back.  Back to a place she left when she was almost, but not yet, out of her teens.  Left to raise a child with a man who was hardly more than a boy himself.  Left despite the warnings, both spoken and unspoken, from a mother who knew it wasn't going to all work out.  At least not the way that girl with the baby growing in her belly was hoping it would.  Through all that time, there had been Kierra, in the boat with her.  Except Kierra had family, old aunts, and cousins of her mother.  They had helped.  Money, meals, a job at Ruby Dee's, crocheted blankets, patched, sewn, re-made baby clothes, birthday presents for children.  And some of this kindness had found its way into Shana's home, too.  But this generation of grace and dignity had slipped away one by one.

          And their children were lost without them.

          Kierra and Shana were family.  But they weren't blood.

          Shana's mama needed her now.  And Shana couldn't bear to let any more grace slip out of the world without being there to cherish it, and remember it, and maybe even learn how to keep it alive.

          There was nothing more to say.  She could not do other than to follow that tie home and complete the cycle, to be there for her mama from now through the end, the way her mama had been there for her through the beginning. 

          And if she couldn’t make Kierra see that she and her mama would take better care of her than relatives who got Kyle killed and then whispered in Kierra's ear that suing was going to make it all right again, then there wasn't anything she could do.  She had to save herself.  Even if she couldn't save her friend.

          _Please come with me,_ Shana thought, a snorting sob of her own escaping. 

          They rocked from side to side, holding to each other like life preservers. 

          Shana pried an arm free and reached out to her mother. 

          It took a minute.  But then the three of them were holding tight and rocking together in the kitchen, against the counter, sobbing like a bunch of fools and ninnies.

          Shana felt her mother reach past her to stroke Kierra's head.  "I don't mind if you smell like fry grease," said the voice with both softness and strength.  "There's a room for you in my house, an' it'll be there waiting until you make up your head to come use it."

          From somewhere in the middle of Shana's wet left shoulder, Kierra hiccupped out a laugh. 

          Shana found and planted a kiss on her mother's head, and thanked God with unexpected sincerity for what she still had left.

 

 


	16. Chapter 16

          At four-thirty exactly, Buck pushed back his chair and powered down his computer.  "That's it," he said.  "I'm done here.  Who's with me?"

          "What does it say that it's only Monday, and I'm ready for the Saloon?" Vin asked.

          "It says you have poor coping skills and no discernible life," came the Southern drawl.

          J.D. snickered.

          "Good," Buck said with a satisfied smile.  "J.D.?  Nathan?  Josiah?"

          "For a little bit, I guess," Nathan agreed.

          "I got plans," J.D. said, sounding tired.  Then he brightened up.  "I have time for a beer, though."

          "I have some work to do tonight," Josiah answered.  "But it can wait an hour or two."

          There followed a few moments of scuffling and the sound of desk drawers and chairs before Ezra finally let out an affronted "And?"

          Eavesdropping from his office, Chris smiled to himself.

          "What?" Buck asked with feigned innocence.  "Sounded like you had something better to do."

          "Nah," Vin cracked. "Ezra ain't got no coping skills either."

          "Thank you, Mr. Tanner," Ezra retorted.  He turned back to Buck.  "It would have been polite to be invited."

          "Invited-schmited," Buck mocked.  "You comin' or not?"

          Ezra looked at his watch, and, in his office, Chris rolled his eyes.

          "I imagine I can spare a few minutes," Ezra said.

          _Typical,_ Chris thought.  He did grin, though, when Vin added, "No life either."

          Then Buck was in his doorway before Chris could even figure out his alibi.

          "Saloon," Buck said.  "You comin'?"

          Chris thought about it for half a second before reality cut in.  "Can't," he said.  He'd lost almost his whole first day back cleaning up his missing folder fiasco.

          Buck frowned.  "It's quitting time," he said reasonably.

          "You don't have to stay," Chris shot back unreasonably.  "But I have shit to catch up on."  And if he was honest, he was still pissed and didn't feel much like making an effort to be  good company. 

          Buck stepped further into the office.  "How about team morale?" he asked.

          Chris glowered up at him.  "Then tell them you're buying," he snapped.

          Buck heaved a sigh and went back out, muttering to himself, but the only word Chris caught clearly was "asshole". 

          "Lemme help you with those, Josiah," J.D.'s voice called out cheerfully. 

          Chris felt a twinge of guilt when a moment later, Josiah went by with a box of file folders and J.D. followed with a second box, its weight bending the kid backward.  Chris shrugged the feeling away.  It wasn't like he had ordered Josiah to take his profiles home tonight. 

          Still, seemed like the man was lugging home quite a lot.

          Vin skimmed by Chris's door with a quiet "See ya."

          And Chris considered that going to the Saloon for an hour wasn't going to make matters worse.  But it wasn't going to fix his personal morale problem or make him any more fun to be around either. 

          Nathan was last, calling out "'Night, Chris," as he went through the door.

          Then it was silent out there in the bullpen.

          And he still couldn't get any damn work done.

 

 

          Josiah heaved his box of files and a couple of reference manuals onto the passenger seat of his Suburban.  He left the door open for J.D. and went around to the driver's side.

          "Thanks for the help, John Dunne," Josiah said, sliding behind the wheel.

          J.D. had slid his box onto the floor of the passenger side.  Now he stood, still half bent, frowning at a small piece of paper in his right hand.

          A parking ticket.

          Josiah did not often swear out loud and he choked off the curse word as soon as it left his lips. 

          "You have to pay this Josiah," J.D. chastised him.  "They boot your car after twenty days."  He frowned harder.  "This is from—"

          Josiah's stupefied brain prodded him to action, snatching the ticket from J.D.'s hand even as J.D. started to name the date on the ticket.

          "It's taken care of," Josiah said more gruffly than he intended.  He stuffed the ticket into the map pocket in the door.  Away.  Out of sight.

          Now J.D. was frowning at him.  Josiah had the odd feeling of being a tiny hapless moth flapping its wings uselessly in the great spider web of fate.

          J.D.'s mouth moved.  "How'd you get a parking ticket at the hospital?" he asked. 

          And Josiah knew, because he knew his teammates, J.D. wasn't really asking him.  He was just thinking out loud. 

          Josiah also knew, because he knew J.D. Dunne, it was only a matter of moments before he figured it out.  Seconds really.

          And he knew, even before it happened, because he knew himself only too well, that he would fail utterly to dodge, duck or deflect the accusation when it came. 

          That didn't mean he wasn't battening down the hatches in preparation, though.

          The young agent's hazel eyes narrowed. 

          Some collision siren from a third-rate black and white film about submarine warfare played absurdly in the back of Josiah's head.  He braced.

          "What were you doing at the hospital, Josiah?" J.D. asked, his voice hard.  He stabbed his finger through the air, pointing right past Josiah toward the map pocket like he had x-ray vision and could read the date on the ticket plain as day through plastic walls, paper maps, and all.  "On _that_ morning, at _that hospital,_ " J.D. demanded. "Why were you there?" 

          Truth was sometimes a harsh master.  But Josiah was sometimes a fickle servant.  He lied.  Or he tried to.  Caught out, as he was, half-truth was as close as he could manage. 

          "I was helping a friend," Josiah answered.  That's when he realized something more like "None of your business" would have been a better option.

          J.D.'s finger was still poised in the air like the barrel of a pistol.  And Josiah knew from the look on J.D.'s face that had the finger been loaded, he'd have been a dead man.

          J.D. seldom swore out loud either.  This was going to be the exception to the rule.

          "Bastard!" J.D. spat the word, venomous as a snake. 

          Josiah opened his mouth to reply, but to his surprise, J.D. slammed the truck door closed so hard, Josiah felt the Suburban rock beneath him.

          J.D. whirled back toward the entrance doors and Josiah sucked in a breath, but then J.D. seemed to change his mind about going back upstairs.

          Josiah would have been embarrassed to admit the feeling of relief as he watched J.D. in his rearview mirror, stalking across the concrete floor toward his motorcycle with long angry strides. 

          Josiah heaved an enormous sigh of resignation, totting up the possible places J.D. would be heading.

          "No good deed goes unpunished," he grumbled,

          He wasn't even certain whether it would be better to go to the Saloon or duck out and hole up in his house until the first wave of destruction had passed.

          "Dammit," he said.  Then, since he was swearing anyway, he added some more emphatic words in for effect.

 

 

          J.D.'s motorcycle skidded into the parking lot before Buck even made it to the entrance.

          Damn fool was either looking for a speeding ticket or a broken collar bone driving like that.

          When the kid pulled off his helmet, Buck could see the fury on his face all the way across the small parking lot.

          "What's wrong?" Buck asked, as J.D. stomped by him.

          "Nothing," J.D. snapped.  "What could be wrong?"

          He yanked open the doors and went inside.

          Buck followed.

          "Whiskey," J.D. snapped at the server.

          "Beer," Buck mouthed at Inez, trailing J.D. to their usual booth.

          "Chili fries?" Buck asked hopefully.

          "No," J.D. growled back.  "I don't want any damn chili fries."

          Buck slid into his usual seat and fixed J.D. with a patient stare.

          "What I want," J.D. snarled, not seeming to notice when the server brought him a beer instead of a shot, "is friends who'll be honest with me and tell me the truth.  Is that so damn much to ask?"

          "You've got me," Buck said easily.

          J.D.'s snort sprayed beer a good way across the table.  "I've got you," he repeated acidly.  "That's a good one.  You're full of shit."

          He didn't mean that in the good way, Buck decided, which kind of hurt because except for being the voice of optimism when there seemed little reason for it, which was excusable because, dammit, someone needed to keep optimism alive, Buck couldn't think of any point in the whole mess where he had actually kept anything from the kid.  Not his advice.  Not his experience.  Not his time.  And definitely not his best Buck Wilmington brand TLC. 

          The server went by.  "I asked for a whiskey," J.D. reminded her pointedly.

          "Yes, sir," she said and her eyes skittered toward Buck.

          J.D. bristled.  "Hey," he snapped.  "I can order my own drinks.  He," J.D. said disgustedly, "is not my mother."

          The server just looked confused and uncertainly repeated "Yes, sir," before hurrying away.

          Buck frowned at J.D.  "Maybe you got a burr under your saddle, but that ain't her fault."

          "No," J.D. snapped.  "It's your fault."

          Buck breathed in deeply and found another reserve of patience.  "You mind tellin' me just what it is you're accusin' me of?"

          He wondered what was keeping the rest of the boys, unsure whether he wanted backup or privacy.

          "Yeah, I'll tell you," J.D. said morosely, polishing off a beer that wasn't more than a couple of minutes old.  "'Cause I tell you the truth when you ask it.  I don't let you look like a damn fool defending people who are out doing shit behind your back."

          The whiskey came.

          Buck slapped his hand over the top of the glass.  "What?" he asked, patience running thin, "are you talking about?"

          "Move your hand," J.D. snarled, hazel eyes boring into Buck.

          Backing down was never Buck's first instinct, but something about the look on J.D.'s face made vague misgivings run down his spine.  It wasn't just anger in those eyes. 

          He watched the kid down the shot.  The glass thunked down on the table.

          "It's almost funny," J.D. said, voice cracking slightly.  "I don't know who you really thought you were protecting.  Me or him."

          Buck cringed at the hurt expression that turned to him. 

          "J.D.," Buck said, and there was nothing artificial about the earnestness in his voice.  "Help me out a little.  I honestly don't know what you're talking about."

          "Chris," J.D. said disgustedly.  He pushed both bottle and glass to the edge of the table. 

          Buck shook his head.

          "Chris and Josiah at the hospital," J.D. clarified, not hiding the disgust in his voice.

          Buck shook his head again.

          J.D. looked at him incredulously.  "That they were at the hospital the morning Tyson Morton died.  Remember?  They came in late?"

          Buck continued to stare at him.  "Josiah got a parking ticket," J.D. added helpfully.  "Serves him right." 

          "Serves Chris right, too," J.D. continued bitterly.  "Talk about stalking."

          The waitress brought another beer.

          Buck didn’t seem to notice.

          J.D. continued on, seemingly unaware that he was talking to himself.  "Didn't do anything.  Just gave her his card, my ass.  Just hung out at the hospital the night the kid died is all.  No big deal.  Yeah, well, if she knew that, she wouldn’t be tellin' the whole world that nothing happened, would she?  What the hell was he thinking?"

          The moment J.D. looked up again, he realized that Buck had not known. 

          He didn't have a chance to say anything about it as Buck slid suddenly out of the booth and headed for the door, brushing right past Vin, Ezra and Nathan coming in.

          "What just happened here?" Ezra asked.

          "I don’t want to talk about it," J.D. said to his beer.

          Vin shrugged and snagged Buck's virtually untouched bottle before sliding along the bench into his usual place.

 

 

          Buck pulled up short just outside the door, hardly able to believe that Josiah had the balls to even show up, all things considered.

          He aborted his path to his truck and headed for the ancient Suburban instead.

          Josiah was just opening the door.  Buck gave it a hard shove closed. 

          "What the hell, Josiah?" he demanded.

          "Buck," Josiah answered carefully,  Buck's eyes blazed furiously.

          "Where were you that morning you and Chris came in late?" Buck asked, his voice a brittle parody of curiosity.  "When was it now?" he continued thoughtfully.  He snapped his fingers. "That's right.  It was the morning the Morton kid died,"

          "Where were you?" Buck snarled when Josiah didn't immediately answer. 

          Josiah leaned back, hands loose, but his eyes unswerving.  "I think you probably know the answer to that."

          "Yeah?" Buck asked.  "Well maybe I want to hear the answer from your own mouth."

          Josiah's voice was calm, and deep as a mountain lake.  "It's exactly as I told J.D.  I was helping a friend."

          Buck swore violently.  And his fist may have left yet another dent in the door.  But it was probably the word "Judas" that most stung in Josiah's ears as Buck's little red truck tore out of the parking lot.

          Long minutes after the dust had settled onto the pavement again, Josiah went resignedly into the Saloon. 

          He did not believe he owed J.D. an explanation of his actions.  But his motivations were, perhaps, a different story.

 

 

          Chris's truck was still parked in the same spot as when Buck left.  He didn't even bother to pull into a spot, just pulled up behind and blocked Chris in.  Just in case.

          He shot out a curt "Won't be but a minute," as he strode past a protesting security attendant. 

          The security guard took one look at Buck's face and muttered out a contrite, "Yes sir, Agent Wilmington," and hurried back to his station.

          The elevator seemed far too slow, so Buck took a page from Chris's book and took the stairs to the eleventh floor with long-legged strides.  He banged the stairwell door hard against the wall as he shoved throught it.  That was about all the warning he was inclined to give.

          The bullpen lights flickered to life as he came through the door.

          Chris looked up as light flooded the bullpen in time to see a bulky Buck Wilmington-shaped mass filling up his doorway.  Chris might not have been able to see the details of the mans' expression, but he didn't need to.  Anger broadcasted off of him in high definition streams.

          Chris braced hands against the edge of his desk and his feet on the floor as Buck came full tilt across the small space toward him, firing his opening salvo as he came.

          "You're a fucking liar and a hypocrite, Larabee."

          Chris was on his feet and preparing for impact by the time Buck arrived at the desk. 

          "Feeding us this 'I didn't do anything' bullshit," Buck snarled out.  "Did you think we were just too stupid to figure it out?"

          Chris forced his hands to stay down.  He held his ground and held his fire while he sized up the threat, more than a little behind and running to catch up. 

          Buck seized the advantage and pressed the attack. 

          Leaning across the desk, Buck had just enough presence of mind to lower his voice to a harsh growl.  "What the fuck were you thinking?  You go down to the hospital to make J.D. leaves but it's okay for you to stay?  What the hell kind of stupid is that?"

          Chris bristled with understanding.  He aimed his voice low and hard.  "I don't know, Buck.  Why don't you tell me?"

          "Tell you?" Buck snarled out his disbelief.  "Why don't you tell me why you're keeping it such a secret if it wasn't so goddamn stupid?  Why don't you tell IA where you were hanging out the night the Morton kid died and see if they don't think it's such a big deal."

          Something around Chris's eyes went hard and still.  "What I did or didn't do is none of your business."

          "None of my business?" Buck roared, rearing up over Chris, using every inch of his height as advantage.  "It sure as hell is my business when I have to cover your ass when you get suspended for being someplace you had no business being.  And it sure as hell is my business when I look like a fucking idiot for defending you."

          The way Chris went quiet and he altered his stance, should have been warning enough.  But Buck had too full a head of steam to care.

          He fixed Chris with a searing hot glare, his fists pressing hard into the desk.  He snaked his neck until his face was mere inches from Chris's and hissed out, "And you better believe I make it my goddamn business when the shit you pull affects J.D."

          Chris pulled his head back just far enough to give Buck a full view of hard green eyes. 

          "Bullshit," Chris spat out in two distinct syllables.

          Buck's eyes flashed.  "Bullshit?"  And he said it again.  The words rising in intensity.  "You proved that goddamn lawyer's case for him.  You gave him ammunition to smear J.D with and you call that bullshit?"

          Never one to back off, Chris crowded Buck right back.. "You're full of shit.  You're not here because of J.D.  You're just mad because you didn't know about it."

          It was Buck who flinched. 

          "What the hell does that mean?"

          "What I did doesn't have anything to do with J.D., and if the ATF doesn't like it, nobody has to answer for it but me," Chris snarled.  "So back off."

          "Are you listening to yourself?" Buck asked incredulously, arms spreading out into the air.  " You stayed at the damn hospital!  You ever heard of coercion?  You think that doesn't look like harassment?  Or stalking?"

          "I don't give a shit what it looks like," Chris answered hotly. 

          Buck had just enough self-restraint to make the desk his victim instead of Chris.  He gave it a hard shove.  There was a ripping sound from the industrial carpet beneath.  The metal reverberated as it banged back down, computer monitor wobbling, and pens, pencils, and papers rolling and sliding toward the floor. 

          The words came out between Buck's clenched teeth.  "You want people to think you're all about the team.  But when it comes down to the line, you just do whatever suits you best."

          He poked a finger hard into Chris's chest. 

          Chris slapped it away.

          Buck shoved him.

          Then Chris's hands were in Buck's collar, yanking him forward.  The desk clanged as Buck's knee collided with the thin metal.

          "If you have problem with what I did, then you go down to IA and you report it," Chris ground out.  "You go tell Travis and whoever else you think needs to know I was at the hospital the night the Morton kid died." 

          In the next instant, he shoved Buck back and away from him, hard enough for Buck to stagger a step to keep his balance.  His eyes blazed. 

          "You do what you want," Chris spat.  "I don't owe you an explanation.  I don't owe you shit."

          "You goddamn well do," Buck shot back, planting his back foot like the football player he used to be.  Then he launched himself toward Chris, looking like he might just be coming over the desk.  "For all the shit you've put me through, you owe me a damn sight more than that."  And maybe, just maybe, he wasn't only talking about the last several weeks.

          "Go to hell," Chris snarled, not giving an inch as Buck came at him around the desk. 

          "You first," Buck answered.  His fists came up. 

          Chris was already in a ready stance, instincts honed in both of them through years of training and practical experience at the hands of the same teachers and the same enemies.  They had fought side by side more times than they could count, but it wouldn't be the first time they used those skills on each other. 

          Chris moved two steps away from the desk.  Moved into a space that gave him more freedom of movement.  His feet were planted and his hands were up. 

          The taunting little "come on" smirk on Chris's face made Buck want to throw caution right out the window—and maybe Chris right along with it.  That smirk made people lose their shit and make mistakes.  Making people lose their shit and screw up was how Chris won battles before they hardly even got started. 

          A red alert sounded somewhere in some rational part of Buck's brain as he rounded the desk.  Chris wouldn't throw the first punch.  Not here in his office.  He'd give as good as he got, but he wouldn't throw the first punch.  Which was too bad because Buck damn well wanted a reason to justify laying him out.

          Chris would just goad him with that smirk until Buck started it, and what happened next would be classified as Buck's fault.  Chris could wait out anyone.  Maybe especially Buck.

          One long stride away, Buck's hands came up.  He could see the throw plain as day, move for move.  He expected the floor to give a satisfying shudder when he slammed Chris down onto it.

          Chris's hands moved to intercept.  His smirk broadened.

          Buck's left hand was already reaching when his brain finally got the alert to his muscles.  He wasn't going to be the one to carry the blame for this.  He wasn't going to give anyone that satisfaction—especially not Chris.

          Chris shifted his weight backwards to intercept. 

          Buck forced hands still itching to wrap themselves around Chris's throat to come to a stop.  So close his fingers grazed the fabric of Chris's suit.  He pulled them back.  Chris stayed cool and frozen, still ready.  Still smirking. 

          Flames licked at the inside of Buck's skull. 

          Maybe he wasn't going to give Chris the satisfaction, but he sure as hell wasn't giving Larabee the last word. 

          Close enough to unnerve a lesser man, close enough that Chris could surely tell what Buck had had for lunch, Buck spoke low and deadly.  "Maybe you ought to ask J.D. if it's any of his goddamn business."

          He had the satisfaction of seeing that smirk melt right off Larabee's face. 

          But the mask beneath was cast of stone. 

          Buck turned away in disgust, the urge to walk out suddenly stronger than the urge to pound some sense into him. 

          He turned his back on Chris. 

          "'Course you didn't do anything wrong," Buck tossed out,  rounding the desk and spitting the words into the general air.  He didn't even turn his head to look back.  "You just keep telling yourself that.  Maybe it'll help you sleep tonight." 

          He gave the door a hard kick out of his way.  A lound bang from the bullpen made Chris's taut nerves jump as Buck hit something with his fists. 

          The words, "All about the team, my ass," floated back to Chris.

          Chris stood there long after Buck was gone, fists still clenched, feet still in a ready stance, and his heart still thudding against his breastbone. 

          He unclenched his fists, one finger at a time. 

          It was amazing, after this spectacular display of tact and diplomacy, not to mention the way Buck ran his mouth unthinking for all the television cameras in the word, that Buck could wonder at all why Chris didn't tell him.  Why Chris didn't tell him a lot of things. 

          He didn't owe Buck an explanation.  Not for this.  Or anything else, dammit. 

          J.D., on the other hand…  The thought came unwillingly.  J.D. might be a different story. 

          That was another damn good reason Chris hadn't wanted anyone to know.  It was why he called Josiah instead of Buck.  He had assumed that as a former priest, Josiah could keep a goddamn secret.  Maybe he was wrong about that.

          "Fuck," he swore and powered down his computer.  "Fuck," he said again, cleaning the papers up off the desk and where they had fallen on the floor and stashing them in his lock drawer.

          Saying it a third time didn't help any either.

          His fingers twitched.

          It was probably good that Buck left when he did.  For both of them.

          Chris took the stairs down to the garage.

          The security guard who stepped out to greet him melted just as suddenly back into the shadows without saying a word.

          That was just as well, too.

          He threw himself into his truck.  The sun was beginning to go down on a day that could kiss his ass. 

          Forty-five minutes later, Chris was pounding his running shoes up a mercilessly steep hill to the rhythm of a long string of choice words he would have liked to say to Buck—if he owed him an explanation.  Which he damn well didn't. 

 

 

          Buck didn't go back to the Saloon.  It had been his first thought to go find J.D. and tell him that he hadn't known.  That whatever Chris had done was laid squarely at Chris's feet.  Not Buck's or anyone else's on the team.  Because the rest of J.D.'s friends had their heads on square and knew whose side they were on.

          But the thought just made him angrier.

          And he didn't want to talk to J.D. angry.  Mostly because he still really wanted to hit something.

          And J.D. had some other plans, probably with Casey, that were likely to go better without Buck showing up to make him mad all over again.

          So Buck drove around.  And drove around some more.  And got out of the city and into the open where he could spew his thoughts out in a long reel without stoplights and idiot drivers to rob his focus.

          No one could doubt how hard Buck had fought to protect J.D, to support him step by step.  Not that Buck wasn't glad to do it.  Not that Buck wouldn't have done it, but Chris was supposed to be there, too.  In it hip deep with him.  It was Chris's job.  But on the worst night of J.D. Dunne's life, Chris was somewhere else, taking his career into his hands and hanging out somewhere he had no business being, when he should have just brought J.D. home and stuck his ass there to support him like he was supposed to. 

          Just what the fuck had Chris been thinking? 

          Sure as hell not about J.D. or anyone else? 

          It stuck hard in Buck's brain that he couldn't see Chris standing around in the hospital lobby all night, but it was a fact that Josiah brought him into the office that morning and got a parking ticket to show for it.  It was also a fact that Chris was wearing rumpled clothes from the day before.  Wherever he'd been, he'd been all night.  So where had he waited out the night? 

          He would have known it was risking his career and his reputation to use his contacts or his credentials to keep tabs on that kid.  And it didn't sound like Chris either. 

          Then there was that shell-shocked look on Chris's face when Josiah finally got him into the office. 

          Buck gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white.  Try as he might, there was only one answer Buck could think of that would induce that look of shock on Chris's face or cause Josiah to have to go pick him up. 

          But it was the stupidest idea Chris might ever have had. 

          He would have had to have used his credentials and his contacts, too, to gain access to that floor.  But if that had been the case, then Shana Morton sure as hell wouldn't have said he didn't harass her.  Unless she didn't know he had been there.

          Or, the thought inverted itself, he was there, but he wasn't harassing her. 

          Fuck. 

          He pulled the truck over to the side of the road.

          Head swimming he ran through the facts again.  Chris, getting J.D. out of the lobby.  Out of the way so he wouldn't know what Chris was going to do?  Or out of danger—which seemed more like Chris. 

          Meetings with the brass that Buck would never have details of.

          The way he let J.D. work himself half to death getting the brass to trust him enough to let him try out that new equipment on the Colón case.  

          Chris giving the woman his card with his contact information. 

          Chris letting her lawyer accuse him of intimidation and harassment but never saying a word against her.

          And keeping his secrets.

          Chris, walking on both sides of a narrow line. 

          Perhaps, Buck thought, he might have missed the subleties.  There was a difference between protecting someone personally and protecting someone professionally.  Chris protected J.D. professionally.  

          Seemed like he was protecting Shana Morton, too.  Just more personally.

          He didn't know whether to be relieved to have figured it out, or galled because Chris had his damn priorities in the wrong order.

          Come to that, Chris had no business protecting Shana Morton at all.  She had her fancy lawyer and his loudmouth activist to do that.  She sure as hell didn't need Chris, too. 

          J.D. needed him.

          And Chris needed to remember whose side he was supposed to be on.

          But then Buck's own words suddenly came back to haunt him.  Speaking outside of Travis's office.  She was not the enemy, he had said.

          She was a woman who lost her kid…

          He swore violently.  Then he yanked the truck back into gear and squealed it across the road and through a u-turn back toward the last turn-off. 

          But he couldn't shake the little voice that told him he oughta get his ass kicked while he was at it.

          His rational brain suggested a nice cool-off until tomorrow would be smarter.  But Buck wasn't listening to his rational brain.

 

 

          The fading sun was a glowing orange popsicle melting out along the parts of the horizon Chris could see.  He curved away from it, coming around the last loop toward his own driveway, shirt and long shorts both plastered against him, shins vibrating, and foot bones next door to numb.  It was getting hard to get enough oxygen now and the shit part was he hadn't even managed to finish beating the day out of his system.

          Sure, it was quieter inside his head since he had stopped trying to plot revenge or avoid admitting who and what he was really pissed at. 

          But at the center, he still felt like that angry orange sun.

          By the time he came around the last corner, daylight had faded enough to make him think twice about going on without reflectors.  Then, as the house and pasture came into view, he raised his eyes out of habit and immediately reconsidered taking his chances with traffic. 

          Buck's truck was in the drive.  And Buck was on the porch.  Shielding his eyes against the vague light on the horizon.  Waiting.

          Buck was about the last person on Earth Chris wanted to see right now.  Goddamn him for showing up at the house, knowing Chris was going to want to come home eventually.

          Chris gave serious thought to running another loop as all the anger resurged ultra-violet orange in the center of his chest, searing along his already overheated collar bones.

          His feet stopped—without his permission—and he stood there gasping for air, legs and body protesting the sudden lack of movement.

          He swore because he knew any chance of escape was gone—or more accurately, he had never really had one—because there was no damn way an expert in surveillance had not seen him coming, backlit against the fading day. 

          He swore silently because he didn't have enough wind to say the words out loud.  Then he forced his feet toward his driveway because he couldn’t exactly not go home.

          So much for kissing this shitty day goodbye.

          His steps slowed as he got closer to the house.  He stopped a good hundred feet from the porch, where Buck stood with his hands in his pockets.  Ignoring the man completely, Chris bent his head down and started his cool-down stretch.

          Yeah, he had to go home, and yeah, Buck was blocking the damn front door, but no, he didn't have to make this easy.

          Soon enough, he heard the crunch of feet on the gravel.

          He didn't look up.  Not even when the toes of a pair of dark brown boots appeared at the top of his vision. 

          He switched to a hamstring stretch. 

          The boots stayed put, showing no inclination to move, through two more stretches.

          Chris stood up, and the heat rushed into his head.  He dropped first one arm and then the other back behind his head, pulling on each elbow in turn until the attached shoulder protested, still steadfastly ignoring the man who stood not three feet away. 

          "You done?" Buck asked finally.

          He wasn't talking about the cool down.

          _I was done,_ Chris thought sourly.

          He raised his eyes to Buck's and pondered whether he should ask him what the hell he wanted now or just walk right past him and into the house.  He wondered if he could make it to the door without Buck trying to stop him.

          The words cut his musing short.

          "I'm still pissed," Buck said. 

          "That makes two of us," Chris shot back and wondered why the hell Buck drove all the way out here to tell him that. 

          Buck was looking away out into the far pasture. 

          "Just so you know," he said, as if Chris hadn't spoken, or, more likely, what he had said didn't matter.

          _Well, good,_ Chris thought.  _Then you can get back in your truck and leave._

          But he didn't answer because it would probably just come out as _I don't give a shit._

          He hung his head and continued his stretching.

          Buck shifted his big booted feet on the gravel and then let out a long sigh.  "You gonna make me say it?"

          Chris twisted his neck to look up at Buck but he didn't answer.

          "Fine," Buck huffed.  "I'm sorry."

          "Excuse me?" Chris said, straightening up to look at Buck proper side up.

          Buck grimaced and looked away off at something that was suddenly very interesting over in the deepening shadows by the barn.  "I said I was sorry.  I'm still pissed.  And with good reason.  But I shouldn't have said some of the things I said."

          Chris raised both eyebrows. 

          Buck gave him a slow blink.  Calling up patience.  "I just want you to understand where I'm coming from."

          Chris stared at him.  He gave a slow shake of his head.  "I don't want your apology," he said.  "And I don't want to hear it.  So get back in your truck and go."

          Buck flinched.  "Chris…," he said.

          "What part of 'I don’t want to hear it' was unclear to you?" Chris snapped and took a step around Buck toward the front door. 

          Buck was quick, though, and blocked the path again.  Chris drew up short.

          He inhaled slowly.  "It's done, Buck," he said.  "Shitty apology accepted.  Happy?  Now go."

          There was no mistaking his tone.

          But that didn't discount pure Wilmington stubbornness, so Chris made another attempt to go around him.  Buck, who couldn't take a damn hint even when it was subtle as a sledge hammer fell into step on his right. 

          Chris stopped and glared at his old friend in the dying light.  He shook his head again.  "You're sorry?" Chris taunted him.  "You aren't sorry.  You don't regret one single thing you said."

          Buck didn't meet his eyes, head down, hands on hips, regarding his driveway-dusted boots.  Sure as shit, Chris knew, Buck was just counting the seconds until Chris stopped talking.

          Saving his breath, Chris stumped up the porch steps.

          The doorknob turned in his hand.  Unlocked.  Apparently Buck had already been inside to look for him before taking up his vigil on the front porch.

          Incredibly, with patent put-on obliviousness, Buck came up the porch steps right on Chris's heels. 

          Chris turned to face him, blocking the doorway. 

          Buck nearly walked into him.  He pulled up short.

          And Chris realized that Buck was just waiting for him to get out of the way. 

          Chris choked off an unwilling bark of laughter at that.  Buck had never waited for an invitation to come to the house.  He invited himself over plenty, whether Chris was here or not.  He stored his stuff in the backs of the closets.  And he borrowed things without asking.  At one point, the downstairs guest room had so much of Buck's stuff in it that Sarah had asked if Buck knew he didn't actually live here. 

          In short, it wasn't like anything Chris said or did was ever going to keep Buck from coming here. 

          Which, a voice pointed out in the back of his head, all told, was probably more benevolence than Chris had ever deserved. 

          He found himself torn between taking Buck's collar in both hands and manhandling him back into his truck and off his property, or just giving in and going inside.  Buck would come in, too, of course, but that didn't mean Chris had to acknowledge him.

          "I said I was sorry," Buck repeated plaintively, as if that was all that should matter. 

          That was too much for Chris.  "Which part are you sorry about," Chris asked, the heat climbing back up into his face.  "The part where you called me a liar and a hypocrite or the part where you accused me of not giving a shit about J.D. or anyone else?"

          Buck blanched.  But he didn't answer.  Maybe he had to think it over.

          "'I'm still pissed' ain't much of an apology," Chris added.

          "You wanna take a swing at me?" Buck said suddenly, incongruously, stopping Chris short.

          He looked at Buck, who was pointing invitingly—and stupidly—to his own chin.

          Yeah, Chris wanted to take a swing at him, wanted to lay him out flat on the porch and maybe step on him once or twice on his way through the front door. 

          "Is that gonna make you feel any better?" he asked instead.

          Buck shrugged.  "Probably not," he said.  The corners of his mouth drooped.  "Is it gonna make you feel better?"

          The word came right out without his even trying.  "Asshole."  Chris shook his head.

          He turned his back on Buck and went inside. 

          As predicted, Buck trailed right after him.  But Chris found he didn't really give a shit.  Buck could do whatever he wanted.  He could go right to hell while he was at it.

          But passing the kitchen pulled Chris up short.  A red and white take-out menu that Chris didn't even recognize was lying on the blue-grey granite counter beside a short stack of green bills, mostly ones.

          Chris, abandoned his trajectory for the stairs and a shower and looked from Buck to the menu and the money and back. 

          He couldn't even work out the words to properly express his disbelief that Buck had shown up unwanted, stalked him from the front porch, refused to leave when asked, and somewhere in the process had also got hungry and ordered dinner.

          But Buck read his look perfectly.

          "I didn't know when you'd be back," he said, and the look on the man's face told Chris that it sounded dumb even to Buck. 

          His expression got a little more hangdog.  "I figured you didn't eat yet."

          Chris closed his eyes and tried to remember that Buck was Buck.  Food or beverage at Buck's expense equaled an apology.  Whether Chris wanted one or not. 

          He opened his eyes again. 

          Buck was shit at apologies.  Largely because, as far as Chris knew, he didn't have much practice.  He was fucking this one up, too, but he was trying goddamn hard. 

          Chris clenched his jaw until his teeth protested.

          Looked like he was having takeout.  Something.  From a place he didn’t even know.  Because Buck wanted to be forgiven.

          He headed for the stairs.

          He needed a shower. 

          And maybe an aspirin.

          And definitely a drink.

          "Chris?"

          _Dammit._

He kept walking.  "I got it.  You're sorry."  Eyes straight ahead he went up the steps.

          "I know you better than to say what I said," Buck called persistently after him.

          _You damn well should_.

          He didn't slow down.

          "I guess I lost my head a little."

          He was at the bottom of the stairs.

          "Yeah, a little," Chris tossed back, a little harsher than Buck expected, from the look on his face. 

          _Fuck it,_ Chris thought. 

          Then he was marching right back down toward Buck.

          Maybe he didn't want the damn apology, but maybe he really did have something to say. 

          "What I did at the hospital had nothing to do with J.D.," Chris bit out, moving right down the last step and into Buck's space.  "I didn't do it for J.D. or against him.  And it isn't anyone else's goddamn business."

          Buck stepped back.  "I know," he said.  He said it again just in case.  "I just lost my head—" 

          "You had your say," Chris snapped back, pushing Buck backward a little further.  "Now it's my turn."

          Then Buck was backing up the hall as Chris advanced on him. 

          "You really think I chose some stranger over J.D.?" Chris snarled.

          Buck winced.  No, he didn't think that.  Though maybe he did think that.  For a bit.  He shouldn't have thought that.  "No."  He even sounded guilty saying it. 

          "So you think I should have just left her there?" Chris growled, advancing another step. 

          The reinforced metal front door hit up suddenly and solidly against Buck's

back. 

          "You think she deserved to sit there alone?"

          Buck got a full-on close look at Chris's face.  And he knew exactly what it was Chris had done. 

          "No one," Chris said, his face contorting, and Buck's guts twisted with it. "should have to sit alone…"

          Buck knew it wasn't that crazy-ass run on a darkening mountain highway that was making it hard for Chris to catch his breath. 

          "…and watch their child die."

          He choked on the last word. 

          Then suddenly, Chris was backing away, putting distance rapidly between them.  The gap widened and Buck had an odd vision of Chris falling away from him down some  yawning fissure.

          Buck reached out blindly, shocking no one more than himself when he actually grabbed a piece of him.  Granted it was that sweaty, disgusting shirt front, but Buck held on.

          "You're right," he said hurriedly.  And he said it again—just in case.  And then one more time as he realized Chris was standing stock still, a fistful of damp tee shirt still in Buck's grip, fists clenched and a terrible emptiness in his face.

          Buck let go, one finger at a time uncurling from the damp fabric.

          He had been right.  That vision of falling away.  The earth breaking away beneath them and between them.  He recognized it now.  Once upon a time he had tried to keep Chris from falling through it.  And nearly lost him completely in the process. 

          In one single horrifying morning, the earth had crumbled out from under Chris's feet, and nothing Buck had done could keep Chris from tumbling down into that black-edged maw, leaving Buck, standing on the edge of it, feeling its terrible grip, unable to walk away from it, and yet rejected by it.  It wasn't his pit to fall down. 

          Buck had loved Adam Larabee and the boy's mother, too.  No one could doubt that.  Chris and Sarah and Adam were all the family Buck had.  And he knew how lucky he was to have them.  Even before it was all taken away. 

          His love was deep and strong and fierce.  Even before the child took his first real breath, his Uncle Buck had prepared himself to fight off bears and monsters, imaginary ones or even real ones that occasionally appeared in this world.  He was prepared to endure solitary Saturday nights spent in the company of a child rather than a beautiful woman.  And had done so with delight.  He would have given up or given over anything for them.

          But deep as his love was, it was not that of a parent.

          Adam was not flesh of his flesh or bone of his bone.  He was not the one who walked the floors or got spit-up on his shirt.  He hadn't lain beside a sick child and sung to him.  He hadn't ever been the one to say "No" or give the child the love inherent in discipline.  And his wasn't the first name that got called out for skinned knees or tummy aches or bad dreams.  Nor was the delighted shriek of his name the same as the trust in that kid's eyes, the belief that his daddy could do absolutely everything.

          Although Buck would trade anything—anything—that was his in this world, and gladly, for one more yawned out "'Night Uncle Buck.  Love you.", although his grief had been real and deep and raw, although the fleeting memory of Adam's small body in his arms and voice in his ear could still leave an ache that was sometimes sharp enough to steal his breath, he had not been the one who had been torn in two.  He did not know the pain that Chris knew.  He did not know the kind of grief that had nearly destroyed Chris.

          But Shana Morton did.

          And Buck knew, Chris had been incapable of standing aside and letting her fall.  Chris did what Chris did  way too often whether it was a gunfight, a dressing down from an apoplectic supervisor, or maybe a press conference about words that should never have been spoken.  He climbed right down into the pit, and sat beside her.

          Buck was at a loss.  He didn’t have the words anymore.  Not for this.  Now that he was truly sorry, he understood how pathetically inadequate those words were.

          He didn’t know what it took for Chris to rip that wound open again for someone he didn't even know.  But he bet it had bled—a lot. 

          While Buck had been focused on J.D. 

          He let out a long breath.

          His arms flapped uselessly at his sides.

          "I am an asshole," he said.  It was the best he could offer.

          Chris looked at him.  Moisture gleamed off his face in the hallway light.  Sweat.  Maybe more than sweat.  The corner of Chris's mouth twisted up in something that was not a smile.

          "Yeah," Chris agreed wholeheartedly.  "You are." 

          Tires crunched in the driveway and Buck turned reflexively toward the door.

          When he turned back, Chris was heading away again toward the stairs. 

          "Where are you going?" Buck asked, unsure whether the ground underneath his feet was steady or still crumbling.

          "To take a shower," Chris said flatly.  "I'm sweaty and I stink."

          The doorbell rang.

          _Dammit,_ Buck thought.  "Chris," he called after him.

          "Get the door," Chris's voice floated back to him.

          He resigned himself to the fact that Chris was going to let him twist at least until that shower was finished and he chose to reappear.  Or not.  Which might be worse. 

          The delivery man looked impatient.

          "Thank you," Buck said, closing the door on him, while he was still counting the money.  He slumped into a kitchen chair to wait.

          Chris found him there.  Styrofoam wings container stacked on top of the pizza box, two paper plates and some napkins, a bottle of whiskey with two glasses, and Buck slouched down in a chair and looking fairly miserable.

          He looked up at Chris with an expression that was far too hopeful.

          Chris suppressed a sigh.  He was not hungry.  He did not want to eat.  He had more than half convinced himself in the shower that maybe Buck would just leave.  Go home. 

          He should have known better.

          He didn't sit.  He stood stock still in the kitchen doorway, arms crossed over his chest. 

          Buck looked at him and he glowered back.  "You think it's my job to wave some goddamn magic wand and make it all better."

          Buck looked somewhat startled, but he didn't answer. 

          "That's not my job," Chris growled.  "I don't have a magic wand, and I'm not responsible for making yours or J.D.'s, or anyone else's problems disappear.  Sometimes things just suck.  Deal with it."

          Buck just stared at him.

          "Just so you understand," Chris added sarcastically to Buck's continued silence. 

          The silence was an answer in itself anyway.  Buck's expression did not change.  It was all contrition and, so far as Chris could see, no understanding at all. 

          Nope.  As far as Buck was concerned, it was still Chris's job to fix everything, to pull off some crazy ass idea and make all their problems go away.  That was the way it worked in Buck's version of reality, which was absurd, and caused Chris to wonder at what point he had become the magic "fix it" genie—let alone how he even deserved that kind of faith.  Or what would happen when he failed—which was inevitable.

          For the life of him, Chris didn't know why Buck hadn't figured out yet how badly this ludicrous faith of his was going to let him down.  He'd been there before when plans and missions had gone to shit despite everything Chris had done to save the missions and save his men.  Apparently, Buck had selective memory.  Or a big damn hole in his head.

          Sometimes, it was easier to give in than argue, especially since Chris sucked at arguing anyway—maybe especially with Buck.

          He slouched into the chair opposite Buck, and Buck pushed a plate and the whiskey glass that was still unused toward him.

          He'd bought pizza and wings and something else that looked like it might have intended to be a salad.  He'd said he was sorry.  And he'd called himself an asshole. 

          In the back of his head, Chris heard a voice that sounded a lot like Sarah or maybe his mother or Buck's mother even, or hell, a whole number of people who were smarter than he was, that told him the least he could do was eat a piece of pizza.  Because sooner or later the two of them would get pissed off again and maybe inflict some split lips or bloody noses, say some shit neither of them really meant, and refuse to apologize after, and then get on with their lives because none of it mattered. 

          They'd fought together, laughed together, cried together, faced moments together they thought were certain to be their last, claimed victories, and suffered unimaginable losses together.  And this too would flow under the bridge like torn leaves down a flooded stream.

          He might as well admit it to himself.  Buck was more important than his pride.  Buck was more important than any of it.

          He ate the damn pizza, but he didn't promise the voices he'd like it or even that he'd be nice about it.

          The gesture was going to have to be enough. 

          It took one piece of pizza and two hotwings dipped in bleu cheese dressing before Buck was chatting happily away.  Chris was only half-listening, but Buck didn't seem to care.

          Buck was never the kind to wallow in self-recrimination for long.  Or self-pity. 

          Chris considered maybe there was a lesson in that for him. 

          Buck overstayed his welcome, of course, and it was full dark by the time Chris closed the front door behind him.  He went back to the kitchen to finish cleaning up.  He wanted to throw the whole pizza box and the untouched salad right into the trash, but at the last instant, he put it into the refrigerator instead. 

          He turned off the lights and stifled an enormous yawn as he went up the stairs to his bedroom. 

          Perhaps that was a good omen.  Maybe he was tired enough not to dream tonight.  If not, maybe he could at least be too tired to remember.

 

 

          The only light in the townhouse when Buck got home glowed from under J.D.'s door.  The kid was supposed to be out.  Buck moved silently toward the stairs up to his own room.  He was almost past the downstairs bathroom when J.D.'s bedroom door opened.

          Buck stopped in his tracks.

          "I thought I heard you come in," the kid said.  He came out of his small bedroom and came halfway down the hall toward Buck.

          "Thought you went out," Buck said.  Going out would have been a good idea.  Improve J.D.'s mood.  Not that Buck had wanted to inflict that on Casey's evening plans. 

          "I'm back," J.D. said flatly. 

          Buck figured he might as well get it over with.  "I didn't know Chris was at the hospital," Buck said. 

          J.D. looked doubtful.

          "I knew he went out looking for you.  I didn't know he'd decided to stay."

          J.D. looked like maybe wanted to believe it.  "Why would he do that?" he asked finally.  "And why wouldn't he just tell me?"

          "Probably because he didn't think we'd get it," Buck answered. 

          "Get what?" J.D. said.  "That he did something stupid?" 

          He looked like he was winding up to get mad all over again.

          Buck remembered how much trouble he had called down on his own head just trying to help a friend.  God—and now everyone in the Denver metropolitan area—knew Chris wouldn't let a little thing like that keep him from wading right in and trying.  So Buck wasn't going to use it as an excuse either. 

          "He had reasons," Buck said, hoping J.D. would understand the reasons weren't Buck's to tell.

          "Is that where you went?" J.D. demanded.  "To talk to Chris for me?"

          He didn't sound like he appreciated it.

          Buck suppressed a sigh.  "Yes," he admitted.  Because he sure as hell wouldn't have raked Chris over the coals like that just for leaving him out of the loop, no matter what Chris had said. 

          "And how'd that turn out?"

          "Crappy," Buck said, with a little less patience or kindness.  "But it's better now."

          He moved toward the stairs.

          "I can fight my own battles," J.D. continued.  "And I'd appreciate it if you'd let me."

          Buck stopped, one step on the first stair tread, and turned to look at J.D.

          He chose discretion over explanation and nodded his head.  "Yeah.  Okay," he agreed.

          But J.D. wasn't done.

          "I don’t need you to speak for me either.  Or to tell me that everything is fine when it isn't."

          "Uh huh," Buck nodded.  He stood there awkwardly as J.D. waited for something more.

          "I understand," Buck said and hoped it came out contritely.

          "I'm a full-on federal agent," J.D. said.  "And a good one, too."

          Buck frowned.  "I know that, Kid," he said.

          J.D.'s serious face turned into a glower.  "See, that's what I mean.  I'm not a kid.  When we're at work, you can't call me kid.  And you can't treat me like a kid whether we're at work or not."

          It was Buck's turn to look surprised.  "I don't treat you like a kid."

          J.D.'s head tilted skeptically over to one side and he looked so much like Chris that if it weren't for the dark hair, Buck might have had a stronger sense of déjà vu. 

          "I can fight my own battles," J.D. said firmly.  "I don't need my friends or my teammates to fight them for me.  I just need you guys to stand behind me."

          Buck looked at the floor as he thought about that, one hand resting on his hip.

          "That's what I thought I was doing," he said finally, quietly, raising his head to look at J.D.

          "I know," J.D. said, "but my fight wasn't with Chris.  I only had to cool off a little to figure that out."  And maybe talk to Josiah, J.D. thought with a wince.  But he didn't say that.  "I didn't need you to go running off to my defense like some demented superhero."

          Buck frowned.  "I get that," he answered earnestly.  "Believe me, Chris an' me have already talked."  He swallowed.  "Sometimes I just get a little carried away when people I care about are in trouble."

          "A little?" J.D. asked.

          Buck smiled ruefully.  Point taken.  "Yeah, a little."  He didn't have to let the kid get all the wins here.

          "I'm sorry," he said.

          J.D.'s eyebrows went up in the air, again a whole lot like Chris.  Buck winced, waiting for it.  It was not long coming.  "What?  Can you repeat that?"

          He sighed.  "I said, I'm sorry."  J.D.'d better have got it that time because he absolutely was not repeating it just so the kid could gloat.

          "Wow," J.D. said.  "You even said that with a straight face."

          _Fuck you_ would have been his response to Chris.  To J.D. he only replied sourly, "Well, I've been getting a lot of practice lately."

          Buck supposed his next "I'm sorry," was going to have to be to Casey—because he was willing to bet money her night got ruined, too.

          J.D. was still nodding, as if weighing the apology before deciding to accept it, and Buck thought maybe _Fuck you_ wouldn't have been so far out of line after all, but then J.D. smiled at him.  Just a little smile.  And it was all they needed.

          Well except J.D. had one more request.  "And you're going to stop calling me kid?"

          J.D. scowled when Buck burst out laughing.  "Fat chance of that, Kid," Buck said happily and took the stairs two at a time. 

          "At least when we're working," J.D. shouted at Buck's rapidly retreating back.  "Buck?" he hollered.  "Buck!" 

          Somewhere above J.D. a door banged firmly shut in answer.

          He was only irritated for a minute. 

          Well, he thought philosophically, he had tried.  He couldn't expect Buck to change much in one night. 

          On further consideration, J.D. realized he'd be surprised if Buck actually changed anything at all.  Next time someone on the team got himself in trouble, Buck would still be right in there, doing stupid shit, asking Chris to pull miracles out of his ass and fix the problem already, offering pep talks nobody wanted, running interference in places he had no business interfering, and sitting up late at night just to make sure his friends were okay.  J.D. could bet on that.

          And he smiled in spite of himself. 

 

 

          Dev Pinchon packed what he wanted to carry, and called a moving company to come in and take care of the rest.  He had paid and canceled his utilities and services, paid his complex's rent and associated fees for breaking his lease, and closed his local bank accounts and transferred the money.  It had been a busy afternoon. 

          He had a plane ticket in his hand for early tomorrow morning.

          He was not going to miss Denver, but he could not exactly say he was going to be pleased when news inevitably reached the family back in Hyannisport.  It would be something else no one talked about at the dinner table.

          "Make the most of it," he had been told flat-out by the old man on that sour day when the RMET team leader position went, unbelievably, to Christopher Larabee, whose record was already so spotty Dev couldn’t believe the government would still give him a security clearance at all.  Back then, they told Dev that Larabee's special-forces experiences trumped his own security experience. 

          But Dev knew better.  He knew it was Larabee's old man, the admiral, and his old-boy, old-buddy network with Senator Redd that handed the golden apple to the admiral's kid.  After everything Larabee had screwed up before—quitting the SEALs and burning his bridges in the Denver PD—it was the only possible explanation.

          Larabee must have known Dev saw right through his arrogant mask.  It was the reason, Dev knew, Larabee turned him down in the hiring process.  That, and possibly because Larabee couldn’t stand the heat of competition.

          Dev was too smart to give up, of course.  He used his own connections to land a plum job in Internal Affairs, right where he could keep an eye on Larabee's career and use his own personal influence to turn events in his preferred direction.  Dev had to admit he had made some nice headway.  Slowly but surely, at a steady trickle, he had been able to make people see the light about Larabee and his team.

          Larabee had helped some.  The man had made plenty enough enemies among the rank and file, ruffling a large number of feathers with both his attitude and his success.  The brass had been plenty wary of giving a team like RMET 7 that kind of autonomy from the beginning.  Larabee had only made them more nervous with his penchant for operating like he was still in special forces instead of law enforcement.  All in all, it was a set of circumstances that made a nice breeding ground to sow seeds of doubt, distrust, and outright resentment.  The trouble was, the discontent remained only a trickle as long as Team Seven continued to succeed.

          In hindsight, Dev knew he had overplayed his hand.  He had made a bold play, but he had made it too early.  He'd had a choice, and in calculating the risks, he had been sure that by leaking information from Larabee's file a little at at time, he would have run a greater risk of being caught.  Instead, he'd gathered a duplicate file.  He'd left no paper trail.  There had been nothing to show that anything in that file was amiss. 

          He still couldn’t understand how it had blown up in his face,  He had to have been betrayed somehow.  By whom, he did not know, but he would find out, for sure.  He still had plenty of connections, and he would not make the same mistake twice.  His revenge would be planned and executed with infinite patience and care. 

          He thought of his new destination.  Yesterday, via a discreet consulting company, he had put down cash on a beautiful seaside condo in Mexico.  By tomorrow night, he expected to be enjoying the welcome attention and free-flowing liquor of his expat neighbors, some of whose family names, to his delight, were already familiar from his parents' parties and social circles. 

          It was a good hiding place from which to recoup.  He already had his alibis ready.  It also helped that no one down there ever discussed the particular disgraces that led to their exile.

 

 

          Shana didn't sleep well, and in the dark hours of a time too early to even think about rising, she got up anyway, closing the bedroom door silently behind her in hopes of not waking her mother.  She dragged her fingers slowly, tenderly over the closed door of the only other bedroom, then shielded her eyes as she turned on the tiny task light above the stove.  She ran tap water into a pan and put it on to boil.  There was no one to talk to, but somehow the thought of peppermint tea gave her comfort, if not in the tea itself, but in the comfort of being a link in a long chain of mother-child talks.  It struck her that in this one, she was both mother and child. 

          She had made up her own mind, had advised herself as well as she was able, yet deciding and doing were two different activities.  She felt herself hesitating at the prospect of actually taking the steps she had laid out for herself, and she knew as well as she knew herself that what held her back was fear.  She had admitted that much to herself, but had not yet had the courage to analyze and dissect and name just what it was that had her so afraid.

          She supposed that was what the peppermint tea was for.  No distractions.  Just time until the water boiled to have a long and honest talk, this time with herself.

          She pulled a tissue out of the pocket of the flimsy pajama pants she slept in—she kept one there by habit—and brushed impatiently at the tears gathering at the corners of her eyes, chiding herself for it.  She hadn’t even begun her little talk with herself, and here she was already tearing up.  There was no time for that, she told herself firmly.  She had started the ball rolling, and she had best get with the program.

 

 

          The sun had barely risen on a day that promised to be fair and pleasant, and Denver's morning commuter traffic was just a little trickle when the big, black Ram pulled into the shadows of the federal building's parking garage. 

          Evidently, in IA's book, extra discretion meant extra early.  Not that Chris had been getting a hell of a lot of sleep lately.  Still, it would have been nice if Travis could have just told him on the phone, since he'd gone to all the trouble of waking Chris up.  Then again, Orin couldn't be too thrilled at having this ad-hoc, come-right-now meeting at the ass-crack of dawn either.

          Chris hefted his extra-large coffee in one hand and his briefcase in the other and headed for the doors.

          The night-security crew was still on duty, coming to the end of their work day.  Chris nodded to Ed and then to a young guy he had never seen before. 

          Ed introduced them, gruff as ever.  "Agent Larabee.  New Guy.  New Guy.  Agent Larabee."

          Typical.  Ed could remember Chris's name from the mere dozen or so times they had encountered each other in passing.  But he refused to call his new sidekick by any name at all.

          Chris read New Guy's nametag while he juggled his coffee to his briefcase hand.  "Chris," he said, shaking the kid's hand.

          "Evan," New Guy answered.

          Chris smiled to himself at the elevator bank.  He wondered if Evan knew he was going to be known as "New Guy" until someone even newer came along. 

          And J.D. thought he had it bad.

          The meeting was in Orin's office, of course.  There was no way IA would invite them in for coffee and a chat when their house was still in disarray. 

          Hardly anyone was about in the building, it being more or less between crews.  Another important consideration in IA's timing. 

          On the plus side, Chris didn't have to wait long for an elevator.  He debated heading into the bullpen first and making IA wait for him while he stowed his briefcase and put down his mug and logged onto his computer before making his way up to Orin's office, but that seemed kind of unfair to Orin.  So he went straight up.

          The office door was closed when he got there.

          A closed door in an empty building struck him as somewhat redundant and didn’t exactly promote a sense of cheery optimism. 

          He knocked.

          Orin's voice answered him immediately.

          "Have a seat, Chris," Travis said, as soon as Chris opened the door.  Special Agent Nina Pulaski, Internal Affairs, was already seated, her chair pulled off to the side of Travis's desk, almost as if she were trying to hide herself in whatever shadows could be found in a federal office building.

          Chris didn't feel much like sitting, but Travis had that thunderous look on his face that said "Behave yourself for once", and Chris supposed it wouldn't help Travis any for him to stand just for the sake of being stubborn.

          So he sat, crossed one leg over the other, folded his hands in his lap and directed his attention toward Pulaski.

          Travis's new face was the one that said "Mind your manners, dammit."  And Chris all but rolled his eyes.  What did they expect for demanding he arrive so damn early?  Gratitude?

          Travis knew that the glower he was sending Larabee was less than subtle, but Nina Pulaski was doing the man a courtesy.  It was clearly out of the question to expect Larabee to appreciate that.  After all, IA made the mess.  Therefore, in Chris's book, it was their job to make sure it got cleaned up.  Still, Travis would expect a man of Larabee's immense talents to at least be smart enough to manage to look more receptive.

          Chris's eyes shifted sideways to look at Travis in a way that made Orin remember to be happy the man wasn't smirking or giving Pulaski the death-glare.  So in the end, Travis left it alone.

          Pulaski cleared her throat and thanked both of them for coming down so early.  Chris's slanted another look toward Orin.  He looked unimpressed.  Travis kept his own face perfectly neutral and hoped Larabee knew a good example when he saw one.

          "In consideration of the circumstances," Pulaski continued carefully, "Internal Affairs finds it advisable to disclose to you, at least in part, some of the details surrounding the unfortunate incident concerning your file."

          Travis didn't have to look at Chris to know he was trying hard not to roll his eyes.  He could tell by the way Pulaski continued on, oblivious, that, so far, Chris was succeeding.

          For Travis's own part, he had always admired how well IA trained their agents in picking their words carefully.  He wondered if there was a seminar on that.  He knew some people who could use the training.

          "After an immediate and exhaustive investigation," Pulaski was saying, "Internal Affairs has named Special Agent Dev Pinchon as the responsible party."

          Larabee shifted slightly in his chair at the name.

          If Pulaski noticed, she gave no sign.  "The evidence indicates he acted alone, misusing his office to obtain copies of the information in your confidential file and to sell them to an outside party, in clear violation of ethics codes, procedures, and legal standards."

          Chris's eyes got narrow.

          Pulaski held up a hand to forestall comment.  "The file and its contents were recovered the morning immediately after the theft by an agent of the Bureau, acting on a credible tip from an informant.  We have every reason to believe all the copies Pinchon made have been recovered and destroyed."

          "Pinchon was relieved of his badge and gun and dismissed from his position with the Bureau yesterday afternoon.  He made no attempt to deny the charges."

          She looked from one man to the other rather sternly, which Travis found vaguely amusing, considering IA were the ones who screwed up here.  That, however, was a sobering counterbalance to any amusement Travis might have felt.

          "I can answer some of your questions," Pulaski said.  "But, as I'm sure you will understand, I am not at liberty to share all of the details concerning Internal Affairs' handling of this case."

          Larabee was looking at him again, and Travis could have sworn he was requesting permission to roll his eyes now.

          Travis cut right to the chase.  "What other legal action does IA intend to pursue besides the preliminary precaution of throwing Mr. Pinchon out of the Bureau?" Travis asked.  He tried not to sound too frosty.  IA could hardly think he or Chris would miss a minor omission of that sort.

          Pulaski looked uncomfortable, but answered gamely, clearly prepared.  "I can't discuss with you the terms we came to."

          "As in plea-bargain, you mean?" Larabee said, notably making no effort whatsoever to temper his icy tone.

          Pulaski breathed in.  "There was, what could be called, an agreement in exchange for Pinchon's full cooperation."

          Larabee's chuffed out breath amply demonstrated his opinion of that particular tactic.

          Pulaski looked either pained or exasperated.  The lighting in the office at this time of day was insufficient to tell.

          "In the interest of bringing the situation to an expedient conclusion," she said calmly.  She pinned Chris with her own hard look.  "I'm sure you'll agree timeliness was an essential consideration."

          Chris's face didn't indicate any agreement on his part, whatsoever.

          Travis jumped back in.

          "So you're here as a courtesy to tell us the case is now closed and there is no further need to be concerned," he said, feeling Chris's gaze burning a hole in the side of his head.

          "That is correct," Pulaski said, ignoring any sarcasm on Travis's part with tremendous poise.

          Travis stood up.  "Thank you for your time, Agent Pulaski." 

          Pulaski stood up at the dismissal.  She looked at both of them.  "Likewise," she said and moved toward the office door.

          "Naturally," she said, as she turned the doorknob, "you are aware that the nature of this discussion and the disclosures made are considered confidential."

          "Naturally," Orin said smoothly.

          He looked at Chris. 

          "Oh, I'm aware," Larabee said.  There was that nasty twitch at the corners of his lips again.

          Pulaski's face betrayed something akin to disappointment.

          "You understand IA regrets this entire incident," she said, an offering in her voice.

          Chris only grunted in reply, and Travis wondered whether Pulaski knew enough to appreciate Larabee's self-restraint, considering the circumstances. 

          Probably not.

          With nothing left to say, Pulaski gave each of them one of her cards and offered her hand.

          Chris held up the card.  "This the number I call if I have more questions?"  He was using his perfectly polite and reasonable tone, which, of course, implied a distinct invitation to go do something eminently unprintable.  Travis wondered whether Pulaski would recognize that either. 

          Hopefully not.  Or at least not until she was most of the way back to her office.

          It was a good sign that her only answer was to say there was very little else she could tell him.  He could pursue it further with her superiors, of course, but she expected that would yield little more information.

          _IA protects its own ass,_ Travis thought.  But he did not say it.  He did not approve of swearing in a professional environment, which was a hard standard to live up to when he had to supervise Team Seven every day. 

          He had long ago given up trying to make his agents toe that particular line, largely because when he had tried, Team Seven immediately demonstrated a gift for creative and colorfully vile cursing in a variety of languages, and some of them seemed to derive a perverse pleasure from it.  So he dropped the policy.  This way, at least he knew what they were actually saying.

          The door closed behind Pulaski.

          It was a very long second before Chris turned around to face Travis. 

          "Dev Pinchon," Travis said thoughtfully, as he lowered himself back down into his chair.  "I can imagine he resented you."  He looked up at Chris, who showed no intention of taking a seat.  "But to throw away his career over a personal resentment?"

          Chris did smirk then. 

          "I know," Travis said sourly.  "Refer to the memo about why you didn't hire him."

          The smirk broadened.  "Ten to one, that particular memo is missing from my 'completely recovered' personnel folder."

          "No bet," Travis grumbled. 

          If IA was relying on Pinchon's word that none of the contents had been removed from the original folder, they were being ridiculously naïve.  He snorted at that.  They weren't naïve.  They were in a hurry to shut the doors and turn out the lights.

          Travis shook his head.  "Well, he didn't do it for money, that's for sure." 

          Chris huffed out another scornful breath.  "You think IA really believes he's going to spend one minute mourning the loss of his position and contemplating the error of his ways?"

          Travis's lips twisted in sympathy.  He sighed. 

          Chris sighed, too.  He came back around the chair he had vacated and dropped his six foot frame back into it. 

          Travis steepled his fingers and regarded his team leader with narrowed eyes.  "What?" he asked.

          Chris looked at the wall just over Travis's shoulders for a moment, clearly gathering his thoughts.  There was a barely restrained bitterness in his voice when he spoke.  "It's a hell of an assumption to believe Pinchon didn't remove original documents from that file while he had it."  The look in Chris's eyes was far less restrained.  "They have no idea what might still be floating around out there or in whose hands it might be."

          Travis looked at him intently.  "Is there anything in that file you might be particularly concerned about?"

          "It's hard to say what might become a weapon in the wrong hands," Chris answered sharply.

          "They did get the file back in record time," Travis answered.  "The tip was from a confidential informant."  It was the only encouragement he could offer.

          "What luck for IA!"  The point was heavily underlined with sarcasm. 

          Travis tried not to smirk back.  "Yes," he answered.  "It does seem like a sort of divine intervention, doesn't it?"

          Travis was pretty sure IA was going to play the events off as something they suspected for a time.  They would explain they were only waiting for Pinchon to make a fatal move.  Their claim of careful planning, however, was totally belied by the incredible flurry of activity Travis knew to be taking place downstairs in their offices.  Still, they would make the claim to save face, and would be allowed to make it without anyone calling them on it, since they were IA, and they were both necessary and feared.

          As for intervention, Travis doubted it was divine in origin.  Nevertheless, the Bureau had acted very quickly to get that file back.  That couldn't be denied. 

          Travis supposed to most people it was going to look like IA acted with admirable speed to fix the problem.  But Travis had connections of his own, and it had been pointed out to him that there was reason to believe the CI had not turned his tip into IA.  Someone else had received the CI's tip.  And that someone had moved immediately to get that file back.  Travis was inclined to wonder about that.

          It was murky and indistinct, irregular, and hard to pin down, but at times, Travis suspected that somewhere behind the scenes, behind the clockwork mechanisms and curtains of red tape and rank, there were some powerful allies standing in Chris Larabee's corner

          It would have been pointless to ask Chris about it because as far as Travis could tell, Chris seemed completely unaware. 

          Nevertheless, it wasn't hard to think that someone with family connections to the Air Force's Admiralty and intelligence community, connections of long-standing family friendship with a U.S. Senator, and staunch career allies in both the special forces and local law enforcement community would have plenty of people in his corner.

          Otherwise you had to consider it very good luck.

          Chris didn't put much stock in good luck.

          And looking at the mans' past, Travis thought he was probably right.

          His thoughts were interrupted by Chris's stony voice.  "Looks like Dev Pinchon had some intervention, too."

          What could Travis say to that?  He said it anyway.  "He'll never work in law enforcement again."

          Travis didn't need to look at Chris's expression to know just how pathetic that sounded.  "Lame" is what his grandson would have called it. 

          "I'm sure that's not going to pose much of a problem," Chris said.  "His family is well connected."

          Travis gave him a warning look.  "Be careful," he said.

          Chris gave him a sour look.  "You really think I'm going to go down there and make insinuations?"

          "No," Travis said, and released a silent sigh of relief.  He would have said busting heads was more Chris's style than making allegations and insinuations.  But then again, he had never thought litigation was Chris's style either, until now.

          He cleared his throat.  "That's it then," he said calmly looking Chris the eye.  "The case is closed."

          He ignored Chris's quiet "Until something from that file turns up in the wrong place."

          "Unless you want to file a further complaint," Travis said loudly, speaking right over his temperamental team leader. 

          Larabee recognized when he'd been dismissed.

          Travis waited until Chris was almost out the door.  He didn't even bother to hide his grin.  "Or file another lawsuit," he added mildly.

          The dirty look he got as Chris departed was a nice dividend.

          Travis found himself grinning as he went to make the coffee. 

 

 


	17. Chapter 17

          Chris still had one more unpleasant task to do this morning.  Unfortunately, as much as he wanted to get it over with, he was just going to have to be patient until the time presented itself.

          It was close to eight thirty when the opportunity finally came through the bullpen door. 

          Buck and J.D. were unusually subdued when they arrived, but, Chris noted, they arrived together, and neither one of them looked much worse for the wear.  All in all, that was probably a good sign.

          Chris reminded himself that he'd had several hours to think this over, and he could at least give J.D. a few minutes to settle in.  So he gave Buck a chance to disappear into the kitchen and start the coffee.  Then he pushed aside his pride and went out into the bullpen.

          J.D. looked uncomfortable, to say the least, but he came into the office at Chris's request.

          Chris gestured to J.D. to have a seat and closed the door.  Then he gave his pride another swallow, sat down in his chair, spread his palms against his desk and looked J.D. in the eye. 

          "I understand you might have reason to be pissed at me," he said frankly.

          A flicker of annoyance traveled through J.D.'s hazel eyes.

          "Are we talking about your folder?" J.D. asked carefully.

          "No," Chris answered.  He didn't hide his sardonic smile.  "We're talking about other reasons you might have to be pissed right now."

          J.D. looked both aggravated and pained.  He looked away at the window behind Chris and shrugged one shoulder awkwardly.

          "Because you stayed at the hospital?" J.D. said hesitantly.

          Chris was glad J.D. wasn't going to pussyfoot around it either.  "Because I told you to leave the hospital and then didn't follow my own advice."  And to put an even finer point on it, "which led to events that made the whole situation that much tougher for you."

          "Oh, that," J.D. grunted.  He squinted back at Chris. 

          "I'm not pissed at you," J.D. answered finally.  Then he sighed.  "I'm not sure what I think, but I'm not pissed."

          Chris looked hard at his youngest agent.  "Wouldn't blame you if you were," he said calmly. 

          J.D. shrugged.  That alone told Chris there was something more the kid wasn't saying.

          "Whatever you got on your mind, now's a good time to say it.  The door's closed and you have my full attention."

          J.D.'s eyes flinched away again.  He stared out the window for a long second and then inhaled. 

          "I understand all the reasons it was a bad idea for me to be there," J.D. said carefully. 

          There was an understatement.

          The hazel eyes finally looked at him.  "I wish you would have just told us."

          Chris held steady under the gaze.  "You're probably right," he said.  "But if I had your kind of brains, I would have gone home, too."

          J.D. snorted at that.  "I wouldn't have gone home if you hadn't told me to.  I would have spent the whole night pacing in the hospital lobby and asking questions until someone accused _me_ of harassment."

          "Yeah but who would believe that?" Chris said lightly.

          J.D. almost smiled.

          "My going down there had everything to do with you," Chris said evenly.  "But my staying there had nothing to do with you at all."

          J.D.'s lips twitched a little more.  "I kinda figured that," he said.  "'Cause it sure didn't help me much."

          Chris gave a sheepish smile of his own.  "No, it didn't," he said.  "And that part I regret."

          J.D. shrugged.  "Forget it," he said, and sounded so much like Buck in that instant that Chris didn't know whether to laugh or grimace.

          But this was J.D., not Buck, and there were some things that J.D. still needed to hear out loud.  "I appreciate that," he said firmly, "but I don't want you walking out of here thinking I haven't backed you."

          J.D. looked startled, which was somehow gratifying.

          "Buck tell you that?" he asked defensively.

          Chris narrowed his eyes a little.  "More or less."

          "Well, that's Buck talkin'."  The words were sharp.  "An' I can talk for myself."

          Chris leaned back in his chair and gestured with one hand for J.D. to go right ahead and talk.  He was free to say whatever he wanted. 

          "I didn't think that," J.D. said adamantly.  "I never thought that.  You brought Frank in for me.  You handled the brass like you always do."  Then he grinned.  "And you got the papers to talk about someone else for a while."

          That stung a little, but Chris grinned back anyway.

          J.D. lowered his eyes.  "This is probably stupid, but I actually kind of appreciate that you backed me the same way you would any of the others.  You know?"

          Chris didn't.  He tilted his head slightly, as if maybe the new angle might make it clearer, which must have clued J.D. in. 

          "Not like a kid," J.D. explained.  He pointed at the manila file folder.  "Like the experienced agent I am."

          "Did I say experienced?" Chris asked lightly.

          J.D.'s lips twisted in a way that said he appreciated the humor but not the jibe.

          "You told me I didn't do anything wrong," J.D. continued, his tone a little stronger.  "And you told everybody else…" He squirmed a little, suddenly uncomfortable, "that you had no doubts about the way I performed my job."

          "I still don't," Chris said firmly.

          "Well, I appreciate that," J.D. said, and in his words, Chris again heard an echo of Buck.

          J.D. frowned.  "I told Buck not to put words in my mouth.  That if I had something to tell you, I would."

          Chris cracked a grin despite himself.  There was no way Buck would have believed that.

          Clear as day, he could hear the dozen or so times he had heard J.D. demand that his overprotective, interfering, overbearing surrogate big brother _”Stop helping!"._   And he almost smiled again.

          "It's only 'cause he cares, J.D.," Chris said lightly.

          "Yeah, well…" J.D. growled out half-heartedly, but the words only faded out because they both knew damn well how much it meant to the kid to have Buck steadfastly in his corner—even when he went about it all like a gigantic, mentally deficient bull lurching angrily through the packed aisles of a tiny china shop.

          _Stop helping!_  

          Chris knew the feeling.  He just tended to say it differently.

          _I care, too,_ Chris thought. 

          "Anything else you want to get off your chest?"  He asked instead.

          J.D. shook his head. 

          But evidently there was something more because J.D. stopped just short of opening the door and turned back.  He fiddled distractedly with tucking in the hem of his collared shirt and looked painfully uncomfortable.

          Chris held still and waited.

          Eventually, J.D. spoke without looking up.  "There wasn't anyone else there?" he asked.  "With her.  At the hospital I mean?"

          "No," Chris answered.  "There was no one else there."

          J.D. cleared his throat and then cleared it again before forcing out the words, "It was just me in the room when my Ma died."

          He glanced up at Chris like he wanted to say something more.  But the words seemed to stick.  He swallowed hard enough that Chris could see his Adam's apple bob.  But he only nodded twice in Chris's direction then went out the door without another word.

          Chris leaned back in his chair.  A little smile turned up the corners of his lips, and he let it rest there undisturbed.

          He was a good man, J.D. Dunne. 

 

 

          She was waiting in his office when Cyril came back from his Community Leaders Breakfast meeting.  Cyril looked at Marva in surprise.  She gave him a sympathetic smile and a shrug.  Of course, Marva would have had no way of knowing just how difficult this woman had made his life recently. 

          But there she was, sitting in a hard-backed plastic chair and twisting a Kleenex in her hands, looking somehow nervous and determined at the same time.

          Cyril suppressed a sigh and sucked up his good manners.  "Ms. Morton?" he asked, as she looked up.  He advanced with his hand out.

          Several steps closer, he could see lines of fatigue in her face and a faint pink tinge around her eyes.

          "I don't want to bother you," she said, grasping his hand only fleetingly.  "Your assistant said you might have a few minutes."

          Now she looked anxious.  And there was something hopeful in her face at the same time.

          It would have been impossible for him to say no—at least not until he had heard her out.  It was his job, as head of the Community Action League, to help his constituents work out problems.  Usually landlords or crime problems or graffiti or urban renewal or job programs. 

          He wondered if she realized he had been trying to help her all along.

          "It's no bother," he answered.  After all, it was his job.  On the other hand, he didn't have a lot of time in his schedule today, and he told her so. 

          She took a determined breath.  "I'll keep it short," she promised.

          He looked at her closely and asked Marva if she could bring them both some water.

          Marva bustled off to find the plastic cups and get them some marginally cold water from the water cooler they shared with a small office down the hall.

          Cyril gestured for Shana to have a seat in another hard-backed plastic chair, identical to the one she just vacated, except this one happened to be inside his office and not crammed in among the cabinets and Marva's desk in his cramped reception area.

          He walked around his desk and took a seat, moving some piles of paper aside before folding his hands on the desktop and regarding his visitor.

          Her hands stilled in her lap, pressing down against the tops of her thighs, one twisted corner of the tissue showing limply beneath her left hand.  But her gaze did not waver when she looked at him.

          "Mr. D'Aprix, I want to call off my lawsuit against Agent Dunne."

          His first clear thought was his surprise at how steady her voice was.  That was his first clear thought because the rest of his thoughts got jumbled up somewhere in his brain.

          He blinked as if clearing his vision would clear his mind.  It worked, somewhat.

          "Ms. Morton," he said sympathetically.  "I know this has been a very difficult road and that you've been under a lot of pressure…"

          She interrupted.  "Please don't try to talk me out of it."

          He could see in her face that this was not a request borne of uncertainty.  In fact, it had a faint ring of stubbornness to it.  Her mind was already made up.

          Still…

          He raised both hands.  "It's your decision, of course," he said mildly.  "But I have to ask if you have considered the consequences."

          A faint ironic smile pulled at her lips.  "I've spent near the whole night considering the consequences," she answered.

          He supposed that explained the lines of fatigue.  That and the last several weeks were bound to take their toll on anyone involved.

          "I'm certain you have," Cyril answered, filling his voice with all the compassion he had.  "But I want to make sure you have considered them fully."

          She opened her mouth.

          This time he interrupted.  "Just hear me out."

          Her jaw closed with more reluctance than he had hoped, so he didn't hesitate to get out his thoughts.  "If you lose the lawsuit, you walk away with your head high.  You made a heroic attempt to seek justice for your son.  If you drop the lawsuit, it is just as well as saying Agent Dunne was justified in his actions."

          The corners of her mouth pulled tight.

          "In addition, there are the suits of Tyson's friends to consider.  Pulling out now could damage the efforts of both families to find justice, as well.  Have you considered that?"

          She did not blink or hesitate.  "Mr. D'Aprix," she said.  "I have spent more time than you can imagine considering the consequences of my son's actions and Kyle's actions, and Radim Taylor's actions.  Plus the consequences of my own actions, and my mother's actions, and the actions of people I consider as close as blood.  And the consequences of the actions of people I don't even know who have all stepped into my life since this happened."  She took a breath and said firmly, "I want to drop my lawsuit."

          There was a knock on the door as Marva returned with two plastic cups and a plastic pitcher of water.

          "Thank you, Marva," Cyril said kindly.

          "You're welcome, Mr. D'Aprix," she answered with a brilliant smile.  She looked at Shana Morton.  "Can I get you anything else, honey?" she asked kindly.

          Shana shook her head.  "No," she said.  "Thank you."

          "All right then," Marva said.  She cast one more look in Cyril's direction and he favored her with a smile before she turned and went back out to her desk.

          Cyril pushed one of the cups in Shana's direction and took a deep swallow from his own cup before he sat back in his chair.

          "I'm not sure in what way I can help you here," he finally said. 

          And for the first time since entering his office, she looked hesitant.  In fact she sounded hesitant, starting twice before clearing her throat and taking a sip of water.

          When she started again, she had managed to firm up her resolve.  "You have been working with my lawyer on the lawsuit," she said. 

          "Yes," he answered.  It was a statement of fact.  "At Mr. Gillingham's request, I have provided him with background contextual information to help him understand the situation from our community's point of view."

          She cleared her throat again, but left the water glass alone.  Instead she looked straight at him and said, "I would like you to go with me to tell Mr. Gillingham that I want to drop the suit."

          Cyril could do nothing to stop his face from betraying his surprise, but he wished he could have held back the half a guffaw that flew out of him without notice.

          It startled both of them.

          "Ms. Morton," he said, already shaking his head.  "I can't understand what help you think I can provide in this situation.  Tell him you don't want to pursue the lawsuit and he'll comply with your wishes.  He is your lawyer.  He works for you."

          Shana bit her lip.  "I don't think it's gonna be that simple," she said.  "See Mr. Gillingham might be my legal representative," the words were inflected with a note of irony, "But he don't exactly work for me.  At least not in his opinion.  He wanted this lawsuit.  He asked for this lawsuit.  He wants to win this lawsuit.  An' I don't think he's gonna drop it just on my say-so."

          "But," Cyril sputtered.  "He has to drop it."

          Shana looked at him.  "Does he?"

          "Absolutely," Cyril said confidently.  But the thought niggled in the back of his brain that Gillingham was far savvier in the ways of the law and not nearly so scrupulous about using loopholes to his advantage. 

          "I want you to back me up," she said again.  "When I tell him that I thought it over carefully and I want to drop the suit.  When I tell him why I want to drop the suit.  When I tell him it was my own decision and ain't got nothing to do with anything other than what's best for me and my family, I want you to back me up."

          Cyril squinted at her.  "You have the right to drop the lawsuit," he said.  "But I'm not entirely sure this is what is best for you and your family."

          She looked at him for a long time before saying quietly.  "I think maybe what's best for me and my family and what's best for the community ain't always the same thing."

          He didn't want to, but he had to give her credit for her honesty.  And when he really thought about it, for her courage, too.

          "I'll go with you," he said.  It was probably the worst idea he had ever had.  What was it going to look like when the head of the Community Action League defied everything he had spoken up for in the past weeks and months, bleeding now into years, spat in the face of a golden political and social opportunity to turn the tide of public opinion in favor of the underrepresented and oppressed, to tell a lawyer who the Community Action League was never going to be able to afford access to again, to drop his pending wrongful death suit against a federal agent who killed three black boys in their own neighborhood.?

          It wasn't a bridge he wanted to burn just yet.

          He looked at Shana Morton, grief and determination and strength etched on her face.

          "Use my office phone to make the appointment.  Marva will show you how."

          He crossed to open the door.  Marva looked up immediately.  "Will you help Ms. Morton make a phone call to her attorney?" he asked.  "And then see if you can clear my appointments for the time Ms. Morton and her attorney will be meeting."

          He gritted his teeth and tried not to consider any of the reasons this was a bad idea.  Or all the potential consequences to the cause on which he had built a whole life of service, and following on that to himself and his reputation.

          Visions of a press conference flashed unbidden through his head.  Dimly, he heard Shana Morton speaking to someone, probably Gillingham's assistant. 

          Cyril decided it was better to prepare his official statements sooner rather than later.

          The ringing of his cell phone jarred him back to the present.

          He shot a look at Marva, who was watching Shana Morton use the office phone, and fished in his pocket for his phone.

          It kept ringing while he stared at the caller id, confused.  He forced his finger to press the button and answer it.

          "D'Aprix," he said, and tried not to let either his confusion or his apprehension show.

          "Cyril," said the self-satisfied voice of Gerald Gillingham.

          D'Aprix moved away from Marva, her desk, and Shana Morton, backing toward his office and pantomiming a charade he had no idea if Marva could follow but was meant to mean, "I'm taking this into my office".  He shut the door behind him.

          "Gerald," he said cordially, as if Shana Morton weren't out there in his office right now asking him to be complicit in her dismissal of his services.  "You're calling early," he said.

          "I have good news," Gillingham said smoothly.  Dimly, D'Aprix heard the sound of a muted car horn and a quiet radio.  Gillingham must still be in the car.  That alone, was good news.

          "What's that?" Cyril asked and tried not to sound suspicious, but it was hard not to be when someone as oily as Gillingham came proclaiming good news.  D'Aprix knew too well that when the Devil promised you good news, it was usually only good news for the Devil.

          "I've booked another showing for you on Leila Wallace," he said. 

          When did Gerald Gillingham become his agent?

          "For when?" Cyril asked slowly.

          "I knew you'd be pleased," Gillingham stated, oblivious.  "Tonight."

          Cyril closed his eyes.  "I have commitments," he said with ill-disguised impatience.  "I run an office here.  I have a job to do and constituents that I serve.  I can't be running around being your spokesperson."

          Gillingham cleared his throat loudly.  "I might remind you that you have an anti-defamation suit hanging over your head."

          "Because I somehow ended up as your mouthpiece to the community," Cyril shot back.  He wished he hadn't said that out loud.

          Gillingham's voice got very calm and his tone deceptively at ease.  "You can navigate through the lawsuit with me at your side,  or you can hire your own lawyer at exorbitant expense to defend you.  Your choice," he added happily.  "But it'll be a cold day in hell before any lawyer you choose is able to come up with the kind of information I already have in my possession."

          Cyril breathed in through his nose.

          "Just the kind of information that shows that your charges of harassment…" Gillingham was saying.

          "My charges?" Cyril interrupted.

          "Fine," Gillinghman snapped.  "Our charges of harassment are well-founded and grounded in fact and a track record of questionable aggressive behavior."

          "Which we didn't know about before you made those allegations," Cyril pointed out.

          "Cyril," Gillingham said irritatedly.  "Why are you arguing with me, when I am just the knight in shining armor to swoop in and save you, Shana Morton and those other mothers and potentially alter life in those communities that are so precious to you by putting the spotlight on a grave wrong perpertrated by the very people who are supposed to serve and protect them?"

          Gillinghman couldn't see Cyril turn his eyes up toward the ceiling.  The man's hubris apparently knew no bounds.

          "All you need to do for me is make one more appearance on Leila Wallace."

          Cyril exhaled through his nose.  "And what is it you want me to say for you?"

          Gillingham's self-satisfied smile duplicated itself in his tone.  "Consider it an open forum for whatever issues you want to address.  Just make sure you keep a pattern of unwarranted aggressve behavior on the part of law enforcement in the forefront, particulary as it pertains to the Morton case.  After that," he said, "you can pour your little liberal leftist bleeding heart out about whatever causes you can fit in during the show."

          Cyril clenched his jaw and unclenched it again.  It wasn't like aggressive behavior and negligence on the part of the police wasn't an issue in some sections of the communities he served, and he surely could cite names and dates and incidents, although generally the ATF wasn't involved.

          "I'm going to send you some specifics," Gillingham said, right on cue, as if Cyril had spoken his misgivings aloud.  "A few examples from Larabee's Team's case files.  Just work them into the conversation."

          Cyril narrowed his eyes.  "Where did you get this information?"

          Gillingham laughed a nasty laugh.  "Be at the studio by six," he said shortly. 

          "But…" Cyril protested.  He had spoken the truth.  He did have constituents and commitments.

          "Cancel it," Gillingham said flatly.  "Whatever else you think you have to do, cancel it.  You can consider it my fee for working on your anti-defamation case."

          He hung up.

          Cyril glowered at the phone and then remembered Shana Morton was out there in his reception area making an appointment with Gillingham's receptionist.

          He hurried to open the door.

          Only Marva was there, typing carefully away on her desktop computer.

          Cyril looked around.  "Did she leave?"

          "Uh-huh," Marva answered, squinting down at the paper she was trying to type from.

          "Did she get an appointment?" Cyril asked.

          Marva took one hand off the keyboard without looking and groped around on the desktop to her left until her burgundy-polished nails encountered and picked up a pink Post-It note.

          She looked up then.  "She said to tell you tomorrow at 1:30."

          Tomorrow. 

          That would give him a little more time to figure out just exactly how to give Shana Morton the help he promised her without making an enemy out of Gerald Gillingham while he still needed the man's help.

 

 

          Josiah liked his job.  He loved his team.  And he generally got a nice feeling of balance from putting those who chose to line their own pockets by subverting or circumventing the laws meant to keep the public safe right out of business.  However, today was not his favorite kind of day on the job.

          He was a profiler by trade, an anthropologist by training, a man of the spirit by nature, and something of a psychologist by interest and education.  His specialty and his labor of love was in dissecting, breaking down, and analyzing information about his team's targets and building up solid profiles to give his teammates an advantage in understanding how best to close the net on their quarry and to anticipate which way their opponents were likely to jump when cornered.  Sure, he built his profiles out of mounds of minutiae and trivialities of which the mere contemplation of sifting through made less-patient men shudder.  But the anticipation was the buildup and the thrill was in seeing his profiles work to help his team bring down their prey.

          Some members of his team derived deep satisfaction in the final closure of the case, the part where the dirty, scheming, miserable, misbegotten, treacherous scum of the earth got the cell door slammed hard in their faces.  He supposed he could understand that.  Closure, after all, had its own redemptive and healing properties. 

          But for Josiah, the part of his job that came after the quarry had been caught, contained, and delivered was the part he found most tiresome.  After all, the excitement was over.  And he already knew whether his profiles had worked or—heaven forfend—not worked.  And he pretty much detested having to justify in quick sound bites for hurried defense attorneys, who usually lacked even a basic understanding of human nature, let alone psychology and anthropology, exactly how the hours and days of minute and painstaking research had developed into the patterns of behavior and statistically based demographics that built a solid profile out of the ether of human nature and the detritus of paper trails.  It was like explaining the genius of Michelangelo's work to a toddler just learning the wonder of holding a brightly colored waxy stick and watching it leave trails and scribbles of color across a piece of white paper.  And the DAs and ADAs and AUSAs with their pro-active, pre-emptive, anal-retentive, making-sure-they-have-anticipated-their-opponents'-every-objection mentalities weren't a whole lot better.

          But tonight?  Tonight, smack between a day spent going over his reports and patiently replying to anticipated questions from the defense team and actually taking the stand tomorrow and putting the end on the Morrow Case, tonight he had a respite, an oasis of beauty and brains right on his living room television.

          He had given the rest of the boys the old heave-ho, brushed 'em off, bid them "Sayonara and see-ya tomorra".  Now he had on that comfortable pair of jeans he refused to throw away even though they seemed to be holding together only by sheer luck and the grace of God.  He had a bowl of popcorn.  He had a beer, a good one, too, from some obscure Belgian brewery—thanks to a moment of impressive perspicacity and unexpected generosity from Ezra, probably spawned by minor feelings of guilt at avoiding basement demolition day at Josiah's house two weeks ago.  He was settled into the sagging center of a horrifically tweedy brown plaid-ish couch that, now that it had seen better days, had finally been worn in to the proper comfort level.  All he needed now was for the opening music and the familiar silhouetted shape of Leila Wallace surrounded by today's panel of pundits, experts, and big mouths. 

          It almost made up for the tedium of the day, he decided, taking a big swig of his Belgian beer, balancing the popcorn bowl in his lap, and sinking into the back of the sofa with a long, satisfied sigh.

          She still had the honey blond highlights he noted, although either her stylist or her actual beautician had given her a more tousled look today.  It made him think of bedhead.  The good kind.  The look was all the more teasing in contrast to her sharp, tailored jacket. 

          He wondered how people got on her show.  He had a lot of good credentials.  He had expertise in current events.  He was well spoken—or so he had been told.  He wondered if they would let him sit in the chair right beside her.

          His musing was interrupted and he frowned to see Cyril D'Aprix back in the chairs half-surrounding Leila's roundtable.  One would have thought the drubbing the man had recently received at the hands of Chris's attorney would still have him hiding and licking his wounds in embarrassment. 

          Josiah scowled.

          He took another sip of his beer and tried not to mutter to himself as Leila introduced her guests.

          She got right to the point—which was one of the many reasons Josiah admired her—turning right to D'Aprix and expressing polite and mild surprise as she thanked him for appearing tonight, considering he still had a defamation of character suit hanging over his head. 

          She even mentioned that he had taken some criticism recently from quarters close to his own constituency. 

          "A gracious way to say the woman you think you're defending said you're full of hot air," Josiah termed it, pointing the tip of his bottle at the screen.

          He admired graciousness.

          D'Aprix demurred prettily, hemmed and hawed and said something about the fight to bring real change never being easy.

          A law professor Josiah didn't remember seeing before, as he surely would have remembered that flaming red hair and enormous hawk-nose, all but guffawed out, with far less grace, that Shana Morton's confession to the Clarion had pretty much destroyed any credibility D'Aprix had on the matter of the Dunne case or the Larabee suit.

          And thus, the opening salvos were fired.

          The race was on.

          The game was afoot.

          Josiah grinned in anticipation.

          This was where Leila showed her mastery, shepherding the opponents and their interweaving arguments, directing and redirecting commentary, calling up and emphasizing facts and key points, bringing in new voices like a conductor at the symphony.

          Lord, she was brilliant.

          Josiah almost forgot to listen to what they were all trying to say.

          Clearly the tide of opinion among the educated, the conservative upper classes—and the people whose quiet neighborhoods weren't likely to be affected—had turned.  The law professor actually pounded his hand against the table top, almost bewildered that D'Aprix didn't see the unassailability of pure fact that no misconduct had been found, that Shana Morton herself claimed no harassment.

          Josiah shook his head.  What the man failed to grasp, PhD and all, was the power of the anger of the masses in shaping public opinion.  History bore it out in revolution after revolution.  And unassailable fact didn’t count for a whole lot compared to emotions running high.

          The newspaper editor on the professor's left tried to help him out.  And it made Josiah smile to hear the comment slide by that Mary Travis's article was a journalistic coup. 

          D'Aprix held his ground with the assertion that there was, in fact, a pattern of aggressive behavior in Larabee's ATF Team's approach to law enforcement.

          Josiah grumbled.

          But when D'Aprix began citing dates and case names, he cringed. 

          When D'Aprix mentioned the dropped corruption charges from FBI in Atlanta, Josiah lunged for his phone, spilling popcorn all over the tweed and onto the threadbare rug.

          "Turn on Wallace," he grunted into the phone before the man on the other end even finished his greeting.

          Chris, God bless him, didn't ask any stupid questions.  He just did what Josiah said. 

 

 

          Six hours and twenty-nine minutes later Assistant Director Orin Travis was standing in his office in the federal building in the middle of the goddamn night.  He held a copy of Leila Wallace's show in one hand and was keeping both impressively calm and one eye trained on his Team Seven Leader who was showing remarkable self-restraint despite the fact he was so angry the air around him was practically vibrating.  Special Agent Nina Pulaski, Internal Affairs, called out in the middle of the night and looking like it, too, focused on what Travis was saying but couldn't keep her eyes from straying toward the more imminent threat from Larabee.  Behind Pulaski, her supervisor, Stephen DeLong leaned against the door, trying very hard to radiate nonchalance.  The veneer became transparent each time he glanced from Travis to Larabee.

          And it occurred to Travis that maybe, when you knew you were actually wrong, Chris Larabee really was just that damn scary.

          Pulaski swallowed.

          She held out both hands but swallowed whatever she was going to say and turned back to look at DeLong.

          DeLong went up only one small notch in Travis's estimation of his intelligence and supervisory skills, when he straightened up away from the door and took a step forward at Pulaski's obvious distress signal.

          She, on the other hand, faded backward, slowly moving toward the door and none too subtly away from Larabee and his menacing aura.  Smart.

          "You know as well as I do where D'Aprix got his information," Travis said succinctly.

          DeLong gave a patronizing sigh.  "You can't say for certain that D'Aprix's information came from the stolen files."

          Chris's feet moved forward of their own accord.  Travis interceded a quick step of his own.  Standing between Larabee and DeLong, Travis could actually feel Chris hovering behind him like the specter of grim death.

          DeLong's eyes flicked up once to look at Chris and then quickly down again to focus on Travis like Chris wasn't even there.

          "Can't say for certain?" the voice said with mocking thoughtfulness from just over Travis's left shoulder.  "Really?"  The feigned disbelief was as clear a warning as any claxon.  Travis stopped just short of wincing visibly.  He clenched his jaw to keep from rounding on Chris to remind him that he had been given a direct order, not ten minutes ago, not to say boo to IA unless Travis specifically asked for his input.

          Maybe it was time for his input.

          DeLong was a little slow to react.  Perhaps he really thought Chris was asking.  Perhaps he really thought that slow deliberate step around Travis and that little tilt of Larabee's head really meant Chris was puzzled.

          Perhaps Travis shouldn't have let Chris take that step.  Perhaps, he considered, eyes falling toward Chris's hip, he should have taken Chris's gun.

          Travis managed not to roll his eyes as a little furrow appeared on DeLong's brow.  "Yes, really, Agent Larabee," he answered, with thinly covered disdain. 

          The blond head cocked a little further over to the side.

          "Surely," DeLong continued, "as an investigator, you are aware of the sheer number of possible sources and channels from which information—"

          DeLong stopped short at the two soft but unassailably firm syllables that came out of Chris's mouth.  Travis watched DeLong mentally backtrack to what everyone in the office had just clearly heard, to make sure he had heard it clearly.

          He had.  Travis could see it in the way the man's mouth opened and then closed again.

          Travis considered whether he could actually walk out of the room, go have a coffee, and come back to pick up what was left of DeLong later.

          It was a nice fantasy but really too late to act on. 

          He looked at Pulaski by the door now, looked at Chris who had moved right into DeLong's personal space and, God help the IA, was smirking right at him, and then looked at DeLong, who, clearly accustomed to evoking more fear and awe in his opponents, seemed just a little flummoxed.

          Now DeLong and Larabee were both looking at him.  One of them asking for Travis to intercede and the other asking Travis to go get that cup of coffee now.

          Unfortunately, there was only one of those requests he could either morally or professionally honor. 

          "Although I might have put it more delicately," Travis said, glowering at his subordinate, "Agent Larabee makes a rather succinct point.  What are the odds that these specific data points, which we know to be together in the stolen records, really were gathered from a number of possible sources and channels?"

          DeLong glowered back.  "The odds have nothing to do with it," he answered.  "There's no real proof that this information came from the stolen files."

          Chris inhaled and Travis shot him a hard look.

          Larabee didn't back even an inch out of DeLong's space, but his hands clasped themselves together behind the straight back, the very picture of highly skilled, investigative, special forces trained, and totally deadly innocence as he looked at Travis and swung back to DeLong.  "Well why don't we just go ask him?" Larabee suggested.

          DeLong glared at him in disbelief.  "If he did have the stolen file, do you think he'd just admit it to you?"

          "Yes," Chris answered, and his smile was positively frightening.

          DeLong was taken aback.

          And Chris leaned just that much closer to clarify, "You just have to know how to ask."

          Travis gave DeLong credit for only backing up one step, but then DeLong had never seen Chris or Buck in an interrogation room.  He did not doubt the DPD had put some serious retraining into those two, particularly in pounding into their heads the rules of dealing with civilians and citizens of their own country—not enemy combatants.  Pulaski, who had far more sense, looked like she really wanted to leave now.

          "Enough," Travis said.  He looked from Chris to DeLong.  "Agent Larabee is right.  It is suspicious enough to warrant someone going down to D'Aprix's house or office and asking some questions." 

          _Which,_ Travis thought at DeLong's head, _you would have known if you weren't so damned worried about PR spin._

          DeLong conceded the point.  "We will send someone—"

          "You'll send someone?" Travis blustered.  "If D'Aprix is in receipt of stolen confidential files, it's a crime, not a matter for Internal Affairs, even if it is your fault."

          DeLong didn't seem to quite know what to say to that. 

          And, Travis thought, Chris could just stop with the damn smirking because it wasn't like there was any way in hell he was sending Chris or anyone from Team Seven down there either.

          "This needs to be handled delicately," DeLong warned.

          Travis practically growled.  "I'm well aware of the delicacy of the situation," he snarled.  "I will choose a neutral third party."

          He caught shrapnel from the frosty glower from his team leader.

          "When?" DeLong asked.

          Travis wanted to say, "Tonight.  Right now."  Because if D'Aprix was the reason he had to haul himself out of his nice comfy bed in the middle of the damn night—yet again—then why shouldn't D'Aprix get to share in the misery?  But he knew that would only result in DeLong balking when they already had him where they wanted him.

          "We'll have someone go to D'Aprix's office first thing in the morning," he said reasonably.

          DeLong seemed to think it over.

          Travis tried to use the power of telepathy to tell Chris to step away from the Internal Affairs supervisor.

          Larabee could read a situation, too.  That or Travis was getting better at mental telepathy.  He stood down one step and then a second step, just enough space to let the man breathe.

          "Agreed," DeLong answered gravely, sensibly.  And Travis let him believe he had really made the decision. 

          "But," DeLong continued in a tone that brooked no arguments, "I want to know who is going and what time they will be arriving at D'Aprix's office."

          Travis let DeLong believe he had the authority to make demands, too.

          "Agreed," he answered.

          DeLong nodded once to Travis and once—although a little jerkily—to Larabee.  He collected Nina Pulaski with a glance and went out the door, already on his phone before he hit Travis's outer office.

          Pulaski hesitated and looked back at Chris and Travis.  She looked like she wanted to say something.  Travis saved her the awkward moment and just nodded at her.

          She seemed to understand and retreated after her supervisor.

          Chris dropped into one of Travis's chairs.

          "Stop grinning," Travis snarled.  "There's no way in hell you're going."

          Chris tried to look indignant that Travis would even suspect such a thing. 

          "Can I suggest someone?" he asked.

          Travis glowered harder.  "Buck isn't going," he snapped and then thought a little harder.  "Neither is Vin or Ezra or Josiah."

          Chris actually smirked.

          One finger came up and pointed at the team leader.  "No one from Team Seven is going to go anywhere near Cyril D'Aprix, Shana Morton, or her attorney.  Do you understand?"

          "You didn't think I was going to send J.D., did you?" Chris asked.

          And Travis wanted to wipe that insolent grin right off the man's face.

          "I have a suggestion from the DPD," Chris said.

          Which was sensible.  And might work.  But Travis wasn't going to tell him that.

          He shoved a pad and pen into Larabee's hands.  "Names, positions, and contact numbers," he snapped, jabbing a finger at the paper.  "And I'll think about it."

          For a moment there was no sound but the scratching of the ballpoint as it made neat, tight little lines of print across the paper.

          This was followed by a quiet zipping sound as the paper was torn from the pad.  Chris handed the paper to Travis.  It was a short list.  One name.  And a terse list of qualifications.  Travis could see why Chris had picked the man.

          Travis looked back at Chris, who looked him right in the eye and said with unnerving softness, "Bet I could have made him confess."

          Travis rolled his eyes and told Chris to go home, stay off the phone, and not come back until it was actually time to work.

          None of which went down agreeably.

          But at least the man was following directions.  For now.  As far as Travis could tell—short of having him tailed anyway.

          It wasn't hard at all to get a hold of Detective Sergeant Ray Ferrante.  He was both professional and disturbingly chipper for a guy working major crimes in the middle of the night.  Evidently, he was one of those uncommon people who actually liked working the night shift.

          Naturally, he was suspicious of some ATF bureaucrat calling him out of the blue for a favor he didn't remember owing, but the word Larabee apparently cleared that problem right up.

          "Let me call my supervisor," he said agreeably.  "And I'll get right back to you."

          Travis thanked the man and then found and thanked his supervisor who was less than overjoyed, but Travis could hear the shrug in his voice as he said.  "It's Ray's time.  If he wants to work an extra case, I got no problem with that.  Long as it doesn't eat into my time or my cases."

          Travis wholeheartedly agreed to that and hung up the phone.

          He was not completely surprised when, less than fifteen minutes later, as he was finishing the notes he'd have to turn into official paperwork when he was in more of a mood to concentrate on paperwork, the phone rang.  He'd rather expected it.

          Sure enough.  Denver Police Department Captain Pete Bryson.

          It wasn't the first conversation Travis had had with Bryson since he had hired first Chris Larabee and then Buck Wilmington, the former stealing the latter right out of the Captain's homicide division to come over to the ATF.

          "AD Travis," Bryson said tersely.  He was quite a few steps farther up the DPD chain of command these days than he had been back then, and a man in Bryson's position wasn't normally up and working at these hours.  Then again, neither was a man in Travis's position.

          "Captain Bryson," Travis returned and tried not to sound wary.

          "I heard you requested a favor from one of my Major Crimes Division investigators," Bryson said.

          "I'm not sure I'd call it a favor," Travis replied.

          "Nonetheless," Bryson returned.  "Considering the lack of paperwork or requests through proper channels, I thought I'd check and make sure the Denver PD and the local federal agencies understand how it is that we have enjoyed the cooperative relationship we have had for so long, which, I'm sure you understand isn't always the case in places where federal agencies and local police agencies share jurisdictions and facilities.  I don’t have to remind you how the fallout from this case under your aegis has detrimentally affected local law enforcement all over the area just by association."

          Travis pinched the bridge of his nose and reminded himself that he liked Captain Bryson.  And in fact, in the course of professional cooperation, from time to time, the man had given him valuable insight into handling both Larabee and Wilmington

          He just didn't have the patience for bureaucratic jousting—especially not when he thought it entirely possible that he and Bryson could just have a conversation.

          Over coffee would have been nice.  But that was clearly out.

          "Pete," Travis said.  "Here's the deal.  Larabee's personnel file was stolen and information it contained was aired earlier tonight on a local TV talk show.  We needed a neutral guy to go down and ask a few questions about it before something truly sensitive is released.  Chris thought Detective Ferrante was a good guy to ask."

          Travis waited with what was left of his patience through the silence on the other end of the call.

          "Orin," Bryson said.  "I've got no argument with you.  I think you know already how I feel about Chris Larabee.  And about Buck Wilmington for that matter.  You took my two best detectives, and I'm glad for every bit of hell that they've given you to go along with their successes."

          Travis grinned at that albeit a tad ruefully.

          "Ferrante was still a rookie when Chris left, but Larabee kind of makes an impression.  I don’t doubt the guy's more than happy to help Chris out.  And I'm glad.  Really.  This call isn't about that.  This call is from the DPD to the ATF to remind you that you have no authority or jurisdiction to access resources or personnel clearly within the sole purview of the DPD without going through proper channels, and to let you know that a formal complaint will be filed through proper channels in the ATF, in the interest of maintaining the working relationship our agencies have enjoyed heretofore."

          Travis's face flamed the obligatory red.  "Understood," he said tersely.

          Another official complaint—and this one on his own account—would be just the icing on the cake.

          "So expect someone to come down and remind you we're all on the same side and are supposed to play nice." Bryson said.  Then his tone changed abruptly.  "Beyond that, I like to think the elite club of people who have had the unique joy of trying to supervise Larabee and Wilmington really need to stick together."

          Travis chuffed out his agreement to that. 

          "If you need more help from DPD on this, call me directly and I'll work it out for you," Bryson said.

          Too bad Orin hadn't thought of that.  Or Chris hadn't suggested it himself.  But then it wouldn't occur to Chris that he had any kind of right to call in big guns on his own behalf.

          "I appreciate that," Travis said to Bryson.  And he did.  Then he did grin, evilly.  "So how does this apply the next time you call Chris or Buck to come deal with that vicious dog you like to keep siccing on them?"

          Bryson snorted.  "Be nice," he said.  "The guy's a moonshiner.  Illegal alcohol.  Clearly a matter for the ATF."

          "Uh-huh," Travis said, nonplussed.

          "Besides," Bryson added happily.  "Chris and Buck got history with that dog.  And a way with that old pain in the ass that owns him."

          "So I'll just send the bills for anything that dog damages to the DPD?" Travis asked.

          Bryson laughed out loud.  "Sure," he said.  "I'll pay it myself as long as you don't let that guy you got with the fifteen hundred dollar suits go down there again."

          Travis rolled his eyes.  Standish.  Travis was out of the office for one damn day and for reasons God alone knew, Chris took Standish in a fifteen-hundred dollar suit down to a junkyard to deal with a drunk dog at Captain Bryson's request.  And Travis still didn't quite understand how the dog ended up in possession of Chris's phone, Ezra's car keys, one of Ezra's shoes, and Standish's pants. 

          "I appreciate the heads up," Travis said finally, "If not the official through-channels warning I'm going to get later on today."

          "No choice there," Bryson said.  He did not apologize because the fact was the fact. 

          "Thanks," Travis said, drily.

          "You bet," Bryson returned easily and hung up.

          Travis was in the elevator and considering how much sleep he could still salvage when it occurred to him that he probably should have had Chris tailed.

 

 

          A lone figure leaned against the hood of the black Dodge Ram parked near the chain link fence that kept drunks and vandals alike from blundering onto the railroad tracks on the other side.  It was too early for travelers or commuter traffic to start piling into the parking spots, so the man was alone except for the one or two cars besides his own, hunkered down like sleeping prehistoric creatures, indistinct in the thickening fog rising up out of the early morning ground like some message from the underworld.

          The man's head was bent downward toward the arms he had folded across his chest.  He seemed lost in thought, unaware of the gray mist reaching upward from his feet.

          He did not flinch when the grey-black shape of another man materialized suddenly out of the dawn, not ten feet from him.

          He only looked up and uncrossed his arms, stepping away from the truck. 

          A smile of greeting creased his face to be matched by the other man.

          It took only three or four long strides for the new arrival to get within grasping distance, and he stuck his hand out and grabbed hard onto the hand that was offered him in return.

          "Chris!" Ferrante said warmly.  "It's been too long, man."

          Larabee only nodded his agreement.  "Thanks for meeting me," was his reply.

          Ferrante shrugged.  "You called," he said easily.  "I came."

          Larabee regarded his shoes for a moment before looking at the younger detective. 

          "I know Travis gave you the details," Chris said.  "But I came to tell you, you need to tread lightly on this one."

          "What?"  Ferranted scoffed.  "I am a model of diplomacy."

          Chris couldn't help but smile at that.   Ferrante was, when he wanted to be.  The rest of the time, well, Bryson had tried to blame Chris and Buck for Ferrante's occasional over-enthusiasm.

          Ferrante's smile melted when he saw that Chris's face was deadly serious.

          "Ray," Chris said.  "You gotta cover your ass on this one.  Just get the information.  Don't get D'Aprix mad.  Don't do anything questionable.  Don't ruffle any feathers.  Don't imply that D'Aprix is mixed up in anything dirty.  Don't get intimidating.  Don't get demanding.  And don't present yourself as anything but on his side.  Be real careful about that."

          Ferrante frowned.  "That's a long list of don't's," he said.  "You had your boss call me to help you out and then you ask me to meet you so you can give me a "don't do this" list.  That sounds more like bureau bullshit than Chris Larabee to me."

          "Well it's not," Chris said hotly.  "The bureau won't tell you any of that.  I'm here because you read the newspapers, Ray.  You know this is tied up with those kids my agent shot.  You know all about the charges they tried to file against me."

          Ray nodded, the furrow growing deeper between his brows.

          "This case is poison.  Everyone who touches it ends up in internal affairs.  These guys know how to use the press and the media outlets.  They know how to run a smear campaign and you know how the brass hates anything that makes the PD look bad.  I don't want to see you end up on probation—or worse—because you're doing me a favor."

          Ray Ferrante just stood there frowning, so Chris glowered back at him until the words sunk into Ferrante's head.  Chris knew the man was smart.  All he had to do was listen to what Chris was saying.

          "You serious?" Ray finally asked.

          "Dead serious," Larabee replied and Ferrante tried to read the enigmatic smile that went with the words. 

          Then it occurred to him.  "So you got a thought about what I oughta do?"

          Larabee's grin widened.

          "Well I hope it's a crazy-ass insane idea that no one in their right mind would ever try," Ferrante said flatly.  "Because that would make it worth coming out to the ass-end of Denver to listen to you tell me what not to do."

          The smile widened.  "Sorry."

          Ray sighed.  "That's too bad, man." 

          "Sometimes simpler is better," Chris said.

          Ray shook his head.  "You just ain't the guy you used to be."

          Chris let out a short burst of laughter, staccato in the early morning emptiness.

          Ray moved closer to lean against the Ram and Chris resumed the position he had held when Ferrante had first come out of the fog.

          "Serious, Ray," Chris said.  "Just ask him where he got the information and find out if there's more where that came from.  If he asks, and you have to tell him something, tell him the DPD is interested in some of the information he mentioned and that you can't give him any details beyond that you're investigating my involvement." 

          Ray quirked an eyebrow.  "You want him to think I’m investigating you?"

          "The enemy of my enemy is my friend," Chris answered.

          "Yeah, yeah," Ray replied, clearly unimpressed.  He gave a twisted grin. "You think that'll keep him from charging me with harassment?" 

          Chris's own grin widened.  "That and the fact that you're so gosh-darn likable."

          Ray answered him with a similar smile.  "I _am_ gosh-darn likable," he insisted.

          "Cover your ass, Ray," Chris said, digging his keys out of his pocket. 

          Ray nodded and got off the hood of the truck.  "Just so we're straight," he said.  "Your boy's cleared, right?"

          "My agent's cleared," Chris answered.  "Unless you count public opinion."

          Ray swore and spat away from his shiny shoes.

          "And you're cleared, too, right?  Nobody still thinks you tried to intimidate that woman?"

          The smile twisted into something less pleasant as Chris answered.  "Nobody who counts."

          Ray nodded at that.  "I'll be careful," he said finally.

          Larabee seemed to visibly relax. 

          "Call me," Chris said, opening up his driver's side door.  "After you make all your official calls."

          "Will do," Ray promised.  He gave a backward wave as he walked away, eventually disappearing behind a distant parked car that was beginning to emerge from the fog, along with a whole world beyond.

          Chris looked at his watch.  He had enough time for a short run before showering and returning to work.

          He wondered what he ought to tell the boys. 

          He pulled out onto the still-deserted road and considered that at the very least he had to tell Ezra that D'Aprix had aired the corruption allegations against him on TV last night—unless Ezra already knew, in which case Chris supposed it was going to be a very different conversation. 

          Turning through a green light onto a road that accessed the highway, he changed his mind.  Perhaps he needed to skip the run and head Standish off instead.

 

 

          Standish looked disheveled when he answered the insistent pounding on his door, but at least he was up.

          If he was surprised to see Chris Larabee standing on his doorstep at this hour of the morning, his expression did not show it, as it was too busy demonstrating perturbed—to perfection.

          "My doorbell works perfectly," Ezra said, his acid tone losing some of its effect due to the way he was squinting into the morning sunlight.  "So, for that matter, does my phone."

          Chris waited about two seconds for an invitation to enter the undercover agent's spotless front hall before he just came right in.  Ezra, who had spent a great deal of time studying his irascible boss's habits and demeanor waited the entire two seconds before he turned grudgingly away from the door and scuffed into the living room, hands shoved into the pockets of his dark green silk robe—which was all the invitation Chris Larabee was going to get. 

          Chris shut the door behind him but didn't follow into the entry way, which forced Ezra to either continue walking away or to turn and face him.  Ezra chose the latter, for about a second, before dropping onto a couch that, like most of the house that could be seen from the front door, looked far too new to have been used overmuch.  He cracked open a huge yawn and then regarded Chris blearily from one squinty eye.

          "Well?" he finally asked testily.  "To what do I owe the dubious honor of having you in my front hall at such an ungodly hour?"

          It was supposed to be insulting.  Mildly.  Repayment for this invasion of his privacy and the loss of sleep he was never going to get back.  He would have liked Chris Larabee to have the courtesy to at least recognize the barb, maybe look chagrined or indignant.  Or something.

          But no, not Chris.  Chris just stood there, hands in his own pockets, looking all grim and grave, like some specter come to haunt him—and probably just as unwilling to be standing there as Ezra had been to let him in.

          He eyed Chris impatiently. 

          Chris let him wait long enough that Ezra began to wonder if maybe he ought to get alarmed. 

          Then Larabee finally spoke. 

          "Cyril D'Aprix mentioned the corruption allegations from Atlanta on Leila Wallace's show last night."

          Just like that.  That simple. 

          Ezra stared at him.  The vague thought entered his head that a pronouncement like that ought to at least have warranted some colorful profanity on Chris's part, or at least something less, well, bland.  A familiar unpleasant chill spread from the pit of Ezra's stomach toward his toes.

          Chris must have seen it in his face.  "He didn't mention your name."

          "Oh good," Ezra replied icily.  "That makes it all better then."

          "Ezra," Chris said in warning.  Ezra felt his hackles rise at that.  The man had the nerve to stand there in his front hall and blithely drop news that a case that was supposed to be closed forever, never to be mentioned again, was suddenly being bandied about the air waves so Ezra's colleagues and people he didn't even know could start judging him falsely—again—over mistakes and indiscretions that were complete fabrications, sins he never committed.

          His jaw came together hard.  "Those charges were false," he spat out between his teeth. 

          Chris cocked his head to one side and regarded Ezra silently for a second.

          "I know the charges are false," he said. 

          Ezra felt the back of his neck get hot.

          Of course Chris knew the charges were false.  It wasn't Chris he was worried about.

          But then Chris probably knew that, too.

          Ezra had fought long and hard to earn the right of not enduring distrustful looks, baleful glances, and suspicious whispers from colleagues in his own bureau.  It did not escape him that Chris Larabee, together with AD Travis, had had something to do with bringing the rumors and suspicions to an end.  The FBI, however, held a grudge a lot longer, and just about every joint operation between Team Seven and the FBI seemed to require a dire warning from ATF brass with threats to back it up from Team Seven to prevent the FBI from bringing their insinuations over with them.

          Not that Ezra wasn't grateful to have friends and a boss who stood up for him.  He just wished there were not quite so many opportunities to do so.

          "This is from your stolen file, isn't it?" Ezra asked.

          "Now, now," Chris chided him with undisguised irony.  "We can't possibly know that for certain."

          That made Ezra snort despite himself.  He blamed the lack of self restraint on the early hour.  "You've already had a discussion with the brass, I see."

          Chris took his hands out of his pockets and came into the living room.  He perched on the edge of the cushion of an arm chair that matched the sofa Ezra was slouched on.

          "And I have someone going downtown to speak to D'Aprix about where he got the information."

          Ezra eyed him.  "How's that supposed to help exactly?"  He pulled one hand out of a pocket just long enough to wave it in the air.  "It's not like you can perform some sort of mass hypnosis.  'Attention everyone in the Denver broadcast radius'," he intoned.  "'You did not hear what you just heard.  You did not hear what you just heard.'"

          Chris blew a breath of air out between his teeth.

          Ezra knew he wasn't helping.  But he was a victim here.  And under the rules, he didn't have to help.  It was Chris who had an obligation, the obligation to fix this.

          "Well?" he demanded, well aware he was pushing it.  And too tired of fighting the lingering results of being set up to take a fall to really care.

          "No one who matters believes those charges," Chris said firmly. 

          "Do you have any idea how tiresome it is to have to continually defend one's reputation when one clearly did nothing wrong?" Ezra asked, his tone depicting the feeling exactly. 

          The corner of Chris's lips twitched.  "Yes," he answered with thinly veiled sarcasm.

          Ezra looked at him.  Harrassment.  Intimidation.  Badgering the poor mother of a murdered boy.  A brief moment, no doubt, in which he had been considered a suspect in the murder of his own family.  Ezra cringed.  Yes, Chris probably did.  But somehow the rumors and suspicions surrounding Ezra seemed so much more persistent.  Or maybe just so much more personal.

          "Oh sure," Ezra said, ignoring the voice that told him not to be petty.  "You only have to prove you're not an overly-aggressive, arrogant, vigilante thug with anger issues and no regard for the time-honored legal procedures and Constitutional protections that govern law enforcement in this grand country of ours."

          Chris glowered at him, which made Ezra feel somewhat better.

          "No one ever accused you of being greedy and corrupt," he said, and reflected whether that hadn't sounded more petulant than he had meant.

          The back of his neck burned unmercifully and his face flamed as Chris's eyes drilled right through his skull, like he was looking for something written right on Ezra's frontal lobes.  It made Ezra squirm.

          "I have never been corrupt," Ezra said with as much righteous indignation as he could muster.

          Chris gave him one of those thin smiles that could have meant he knew that or that he was thinking other thoughts entirely.

          "I thought you ought to know before you heard it from other channels," Chris said finally.  Then he rose up from the chair, looming over Ezra for just a moment before putting his hands back in his pockets and gliding wraith-like toward the front door. 

          Ezra didn't move, although the ludicrous thought crossed his mind, as Chris crossed to the front door that he should at least have offered the man coffee for coming all the way out here to make a courtesy call.

          The words "other channels" echoed across his mind, interrupting his thoughts.

          "Does the rest of the team know?" he asked.

          Chris turned back, one hand already on the doorknob.  "Josiah does," he said.  "I don't know about the others."

          Ezra nodded and wondered which was actually worse, the suspicious glowers of people he didn't care about or the relentless teasing he was about to endure from the team's tactless second in command and Tanner's peculiar sarcasm that had a tendency to hit way too close to the bone.

          He grimaced. 

          At least the team knew the charges weren't true.  The unbearable teasing was just their crass way of telling him that.

          Ezra pushed himself up to a sitting position and got up from the couch.  "Thank you for letting me know," he said stiffly.

          Chris was still looking at him.  "You know we've got your back," he said, his voice quiet but holding the strength of truth inviolate.

          Ezra just nodded.  He knew that.  He really did.  It had taken him a little time to truly accept it at the outset, but those days were well in the past.  He just wished his friends and teammates weren't going to have to prove it all over again.

          He went to make coffee.

          "Would you care for coffee?" he asked finally, as his bare toes brushed the edge where living room carpet became kitchen tile, the only demarcation of space in the open floor plan.

          There was no answer.  And when he turned back the reason was apparent.  Chris was no longer there.  Vanished into the morning so completely that Ezra never even heard the door close.

          He sighed and continued on into the kitchen.  He couldn't change the past or control the future, but a little extra caffeine might help him cope.

          Seemed they'd all been turning to that particular crutch way too often lately.

 

 


	18. Chapter 18

          Cyril D'Aprix hummed to himself as he took the stairs up to his office.  Yesterday's Community Leaders Breakfast had gone well.  He had brokered some major temporary truces recently that were now, finally, allowing some different neighborhoods to move forward together on issues that mattered to them all.  This would allow them to put some pressure on the city government.  It had taken a long time, since the indigent and the poor were often voiceless in government, too busy surviving or sometimes hiding to come out in numbers and vote, which made them far too easy to ignore.  Not this year.  This year, they planned to run an enormous voter registration drive, educate as many of their constituents as possible on the hot-button issues and the issues that affected them, to pull out all the stops in proving that the issues really did affect them, and take advantage of revised election districts to make voting as accessible as possible.  This year was going to be different.  This year was going to be an enormous step forward.

          The cheery little song died quite suddenly when Marva met him at the office door, so nervous she was practically wringing her hands.  Her forehead sparkled damply under the fluorescent lights.  He fought the urge to take one of her hands and still it.

          He didn't even have time to ask what was wrong, let alone who was the man pressed into one of the plastic chairs in his waiting area.  Marva blurted it right out.

          "Mr. D'Aprix," she stuttered out in a breathless and unsuccessful attempt to whisper.  "There's a detective here from Major Crimes.  He wants to talk to you."

          D'Aprix frowned around Marva's bulk at the stockily-built man.  He looked to be about thirty-ish.  Asian maybe.  Maybe Latino.  Filipino, more likely.  He didn't look up at either of them, just busily clicked his pen above a small notebook.  Giving them space, D'Aprix realized, since Marva was doing her very best to keep from actually becoming hysterical.  If the young man had been aware of Marva's life experience with the police, he might have understood a little better. 

          D'Aprix contained his frown and gave Marva a reassuring smile.  This time he did grab her hands.

          "Thank you, Marva," he said in his calmest and most confident voice.  He folded both of her hands together into his left hand and gave them a paternal pat.

          "Would you got get us a pitcher of water and some coffee, please?" he asked. 

          She hesitated, torn between duty and fleeing.  That made Cyril smile and remember there were different kinds of courage.

          "Take your time," he said gently.

          She nodded and turned back into the office with enormous dignity to fetch the pitcher and a tray.

          Cyril waited until she had gone out the door, the detective watching them both obliquely, before he addressed the man directly.

          He gave the man credit for waiting until Marva had cleared the doorway before he stood up, straightened his shoulders and came forward with his badge.

          "Detective?" D'Aprix asked pleasantly enough.

          "Ferrante," the man replied.  "Detective Ferrante."  He wasn't nearly as tall as Cyril had expected.  Perhaps it was just some kind of aura that loaned the man the illusion of height. 

          "How can I help you, Detective?" Cyril asked.

          Ferrante's eyes strayed over D'Aprix's shoulder toward the door. 

          Cyril turned to follow the glance, wondering if Marva had come back for something, but the doorway was empty.

          He realized with a start that that was what concerned the detective, too.

          "She all right?" the man asked.

          D'Aprix relented a little in his reserve.  "She doesn’t have the best of personal experience with the police department," he answered.

          Ferrante frowned a little.  "Yeah," he said quietly.  "I get that."

          D'Aprix managed a little smile.  "How can I help you?" he asked.  After all, he had work to do today.

          Detective Ferrante cleared his throat.  "I was hoping to ask you a few questions about your appearance on Leila Wallace yesterday evening."

          D'Aprix eyed him but maintained his pleasant demeanor.  "I was not aware that TV shows were a matter of police jurisdiction."

          Ferrante gave him a small smile.  "Actually, we were interested in some of the information you made reference to during the show.  It could have some bearing on an ongoing investigation."

          "Oh," D'Aprix said.  "Come into my office."  He hoped that sounded calm because he could feel the sweat burst out on his forehead.  Gillingham had given him information pertaining to an ongoing investigation?  Of all the stupid blunders—unless it wasn't a blunder, unless Gillingham was setting him up somehow.  Was Gillingham planning to make him the fall guy for Larabee's lawsuit?

          He had to tread carefully here.

          He waved Ferrante to a chair and shut the door most of the way.  He took a seat behind his desk and folded his hands calmly on the desk top.  The picture of calm and earnest innocence, he told himself.  Then he looked Ferrante in the eye.

          "Ask away," D'Aprix said with the air of a man who had absolutely nothing to hide.  And hoped to God that was still true.

          "Let me get right to the point," Ferrante said, flipping his little notebook to an empty page.  "Some of the information you gave out on the Wallace show last night could be termed sensitive."

          "Sensitive?" D'Aprix asked.

          "As in not available to the public through normal channels," Ferrante replied.

          D'Aprix's collar seemed to shrink just a bit.  He pressed his hands against the desktop to keep from tugging on it.

          "It seems unlikely for a police detective to be involved in a question of the first amendment," D'Aprix said carefully.  He was well-versed in the legalities surrounding censorship and the freedom of speech.  The ground seemed to steady beneath his feet.

          Ferrante grinned, white teeth in a cloud of whiskery shadow.  Unusual for a detective to start work unshaven, especially considering his choice of businesslike clothes.  The detective must have been coming to the end of his shift.  Doubtless he'd be anxious to be on his way.  Perhaps D'Aprix could use that to his advantage.

          "This isn't about freedom of the press, or freedom of speech," Ferrante said easily.  "It's a matter of theft, plain and simple."

          D'Aprix's mouth went dry. 

          Marva showed up with the water and the coffee, shoving the door open with her hip and entering the room.  Everything about her posture shouted out that she was both in a hurry and yet trying to make herself as tiny and inconspicuous as possible.  If the matter at hand and her palpable fear had not been so serious, the idea of a woman of her size trying to sneak into an office so small the two men inside it filled it up, might have been humorous.  As it was, neither man cracked a smile.  And D'Aprix had to appreciate the detective for that.

          "Thank you, Marva," D'Aprix said gently.

          She shoved a cup of coffee, unasked, toward the detective, the liquid inside it trembling.

          "Thank you, ma'am," he said quietly.

          She croaked out something that could have been a "you're welcome" without looking at either man.  The plastic cups rattled and fell over as she set the tray on Cyril's desk and left the office in something that approached a scurry.

          Ferrante watched her go out of the corner of his eye.

          And while the detective was distracted, D'Aprix took a gulp of the water, soothed his suddenly dry throat, and regrouped.

          He was ready when Ferrante turned back toward him. 

          "You were saying?" he asked.

          "Let me get right to the point," Ferrante said.  "You're a busy man, and frankly it's been a long night."  He glanced toward the outer office, where Marva was typing away with far too much concentration.  "I think it's in everyone's best interest that I finish up and leave here as soon as possible."

          D'Aprix gave him a small smile.  "I can't argue with you there, Detective."  He gestured with one hand.  "By all means, get right to it."

          "The information you gave out last night likely came from a stolen file.  I'd like to know anything you know about how you came by it and where that file is now."

          D'Aprix didn't try to stop the surprise from showing on his face.  "Stolen?" he repeated vaguely.

          "Yes, sir," Ferrante said, regarding him steadily.

          D'Aprix licked his lips and swallowed.  "I assure you, I did not know the information had been obtained improperly when it was given to me."  He was speaking too fast and he knew it.  Damn Gillingham.  If he thought Cyril D'Aprix was going to take the fall for stolen files or jeopardize his causes in any way by getting himself tangled up in anything that smacked of impropriety, well then Gillingham was in for a big surprise.  Cyril could get another anti-defamation lawyer if he had to.  Even if he had to take out a damn loan.  He was not covering up for Gerald Gillingham.

          "I was given the information," he said firmly.  "By an attorney named Gerald Gillingham."

          "I know the name," Ferrante said, scribbling hurriedly in his notebook.  "Where is the file now?"

          "I don’t know," D'Aprix answered.  "I never saw the file.  Gillingham just gave me the information he thought might come in handy on the show."

          Ferrante nodded and kept scribbling.

          "Believe me, Detective," D'Aprix said, his voice sounding a little tinny even to his own ears.  "I had no idea about a stolen file.  I have too much at stake here, too much depends on me to be involved in something like that."

          Ferrante, still scribbling, was now looking at him from the corner of one eye.

          "Mr. D'Aprix," the detective said calmly.  "Believe me.  We have a lot more respect for you than to think you stole a confidential file and then went and aired the information in it in a public forum." 

          D'Aprix smiled faintly.  "Well, that would be pretty foolish," he said weakly.  He now saw he'd been foolish in a lot of ways recently.

          "Do you know if Gillingham has any more plans to air information from that file?" Ferrante asked.

          D'Aprix shrugged.  Seemingly of its own accord, his left hand tugged at his collar.  "I couldn't say," he answered.

          Probably.  More than likely.  Already, various media outlets had taken an interest, especially in the corruption allegations against one of the agents.  A few persons on call-in shows had begun to express a sense of offense at the aggressive tactics D'Aprix had aired last night.  With proper nurturing, this could bolster the public outrage that Gillingham so desperately wanted to continue. 

          A few talk show callers had expressed their likewise firm opinions that tough measures against crime were just what the country needed and that criminals who preyed on people deserved to get paid back in kind.  At least one man had suggested Larabee run for governor.  But those shows didn't tend to play to the audiences Gillingham wanted to cultivate.  They weren't the kind of people who generally sat on juries.  They weren't the people who were most outraged by the killing of three boys or who suffered most from actual or perceived police bias or brutality.

          "Do you know if Gillingham has possession of the file?" Ferrante asked.

          He honestly did not.  He didn't doubt Gillingham had had access to the file.  But he didn’t think the man was stupid enough to actually keep stolen property in his possession.  Assuming Gillingham knew it was stolen.  There was a time he would have assumed Gillingham, too, had been somehow duped.  He would have thought it preposterous that a sworn lawyer would dabble in stolen information.  Not anymore.  In truth, it was more than likely that Gillingham had had something to do with the theft.

          D'Aprix was willing to throw Gillingham to the wolves if he had to, but he was smart enough to know he had to be careful to at least make it look like he hadn't done it on purpose.

          Ferrante was waiting for an answer. 

          D'Aprix furrowed his brow and tried to look perplexed.  "I don't know," he answered finally.  He shook his head apologetically.  "I'm sorry.  I know I haven't been much help."

          Ferrante made to get up.  "You've been more help than you know," he said.  He dropped his card on D'Aprix's desk.  "In case you think of something else.  Or need to get in touch with me," he said.

          D'Aprix picked up the card and put it in his breast pocket.  "Good day, Detective," he said, sliding out from behind his desk and ushering Ferrante to the door, without trying to seem like he was in a hurry.

          "Ma'am," Ferrante said with a short nod as he passed Marva's desk.

          She nodded mutely back, eyes larger than normal.

          Then he was gone.

          Marva seemed to wilt with relief.

          She looked up at Cyril, large brown eyes in a carefully made-up face.

          "Everything's fine, Marva," he said kindly.  "No need for concern.  I'm just helping the detective with an open case."

          "Is someone in trouble?" Marva asked. 

          A lot of people called the office or filed through the door on a weekly basis, looking for help, and it was in Marva's nature to take much of it personally.  He liked that about her.  It was part of what made him glad he hired her.  A lot of places thought of their troubled clients as cases.  Marva thought of them as people.  People with problems.

          "Not one of ours," he said reassuringly. 

          He handed her a letter to correct, as a matter of distraction, and asked her to run down his day's appointments.

          Gerald Gillingham, 1:30, with Shana Morton.  He wondered whether he was going to have to keep that appointment.  Perhaps Shana Morton's lawsuit problems had just resolved themselves.  He had the sinking feeling that his own just got worse.

 

 

          Ray Ferrante filed his report with his superior, e-mailed a brief summary to ATF Assistant Director Travis, and then, well past the end of his shift and already yawning, dialed Chris Larabee's cell phone number.

          "Larabee," the voice answered gruffly and Ray smiled.

          "It's Ray," Ferrante said.  "You somewhere you can talk?"

          "Yeah," Chris replied.  There were some shuffling noises on the other end.  Ray looked at his watch.  Larabee was probably at work by now.

          "It go all right?"  That was the first answer Chris wanted.  That made Ray grin wider.

          "Like butter," Ray answered.

          "You telling the truth?" Larabee asked. 

          "I was cordial, friendly, professional, and above all, non-threatening," Ferrante assured him.  "D'Aprix got the information from a lawyer named Gillingham."

          "I know the guy."  And from the tone of Chris's voice, this Gillingham character was not getting an invitation to Christmas dinner.

          "Just say the word and I'll head on over to talk to this Gillingham dude, too," Ray said. 

          He hoped Chris would think about it.  He hoped Chris would just say the word.

          "Chris?" he prodded.  "If this dude's got your file, then there's probably a lot more info where that came from.  It's stolen property, man.  I can get a warrant to search for it."

          He couldn’t deny a certain disappointment when Larabee declined and told him to go on home.  Not that the prospect of bed didn't hold a certain amount of appeal right now. 

          "A couple hours and I can be good and ready to roll," Ray offered, once again.

          "You did enough, Ray," Chris said.  "And thank you."

          Ray sighed.  "Okay then.  You tell me when you get your info back or put this guy out of commission.  One or the other.  Right?"

          It was a reluctant promise.  But it was a promise nevertheless.

          Ray hung up and yawned thickly.

          Downtown, Chris tossed only one word to Buck who was leaning in his doorway. 

          "Gillingham," he said, pushing by his second in command en route to the stairs.

          Buck rolled his eyes.  That figured.  He didn't move any farther out of the doorway than was absolutely necessary to let Chris by and only leaned backward slightly to get a clear path to holler out "Probable cause" at Larabee's retreating back.

          "He's being awful restrained and legal-like about this," Vin observed.

          Buck glowered at him.  "He wants this asshole dead and buried. Legally," he added.

          Vin shrugged.  "Not as much fun as the other way."

          Ezra looked at both of them sourly.  "It isn't enough to simply kill and bury Gillingham.  Bloodsuckers need to be staked to the ground and have their heads cut off."

          "Actually," Josiah put in.  "Some cultures believe you only have to bury a vampire at a crossroads.  It will spend the whole night trying to decide which way to go only to have to return to its grave at dawn and begin again the next night."

          J.D. gave him an odd look, but Josiah didn't seem to notice.

          "Frankly, I think burning the body is the best way to go," the profiler concluded thoughtfully.

          "Nice," Nathan groused.  "Real nice.  And you wonder why IA doesn't just set up an office in here with us."

          "Either way," Buck interrupted, ignoring Nathan.  "Chris wants to make sure this guy can't just get back up and come at us again from some other direction."

          Vin looked pointedly at Buck.  "Like I said.."

          "Without one of us going to jail," Buck clarified.

          Vin shrugged again.  "There are worse—"

          "Or getting kicked off this team," Buck cut him off.

          "That's worse," Vin agreed.

          Now J.D. just looked glum.

          Nathan leaned toward him.  "This ain't your fault," he said vehemently.  "All these people, they made their own decisions.  You ain't responsible for what other people decide."

          "I know," J.D. sighed, lowering his voice in hopes no one else would hear him.  "But I started it and now two of my teammates are in trouble."

          "You didn't start it," Nathan hissed back.  "Three kids who picked up guns and tried to hold up a store started it.  Don't forget that."

          J.D.'s face twisted into a grimace.  "Forgetting isn't exactly my problem." 

          He wished he could forget it.  But every moment of that morning had been branded into his memory.  He saw it when he was awake and relived it when he was asleep.  Sometimes he tried to make it come out different, but when he awoke it was always the same.  Those three boys were still dead.  The whole world seemed to be in an uproar.  And he was being sued.  Now, on top of that, Chris had been accused of harassment and was getting crucified in the press, and past accusations against Ezra had reared their ugly heads again.

          He bit his tongue to keep from apologizing.  Again.  Because Buck had told him to stop with the damn apologizing because it was driving him crazy.  There had been a definite "or else" in the man's eyes, and J.D. didn't really feel like testing the unspoken threat. 

          Ezra shoved back his chair and announced he was going over to the ballistics lab.

          "I'll go with you," Josiah said rolling back from his desk.

          Ezra glowered balefully at the bigger man.  "I do not need an escort," he bit out.

          "It's not an escort," Josiah demurred, drawing himself to his full standing height and hooking his thumbs in his belt.  He gave a toothy grin.  "It's more like a show of solidarity."

          Ezra spread his exasperated look to all of them on principle, then turned on his heel and strode toward the door. 

          Josiah was right on the man's heels before they even made the elevator bank.

          Buck watched them go.

          "Double odds Ezra ditches him before they get out of the building," came the low Texan drawl.

          There was a small chorus of "I'm in" as the three other men reached for their wallets.  A flock of green bills in small denominations fluttered down to roost on Vin's desk.

 

 

          Travis looked up from his paperwork as Chris Larabee came in.

          "You heard, no doubt," the AD said drily.

          Chris only grinned.

          "Don't look so smug," the former judge said.  "Nothing's happened yet."

          Chris shrugged.  "I could help move the investigation along for you."

          Travis glowered at him.  "If you so much as leave the building today without specific authorization, I'll have you dragged back and confined to your office."

          The team leader only grinned insolently.

          Travis pointed a finger at him.  "I'm not joking."

          Unfortunately, the grin told Travis that not only did Chris Larabee know that, he also didn't much care.  Still, working with Larabee sometimes required a man to perform a leap of faith.  And whatever happened, Travis had learned to have faith that his team leader knew exactly what he was doing, regardless of how much evidence there was to the contrary.

          "And Standish?" Travis asked.

          "I spoke to him this morning," Chris said, his smile fading.  "It's been quiet so far.  Let's hope it stays that way."

          "Frank Ford is away on vacation," Travis said.  "He's the only one I can think of on our side who's likely to give Standish a hard time."

          Professional jealousy was an ugly vice.

          Chris only nodded and looked at him expectantly.

          "And so far the FBI are staying on their side of the building."

          Larabee didn't look terribly convinced, but he nodded again.

          "Standish has proven himself a hundredfold by now," Travis said with exasperation.

          "To us," Chris answered.

          Travis tilted his head.  "Does anyone else really matter?" he asked.

          "Not to us," Chris said without hesitation.  "Doesn't mean a guy should have to prove himself over and over for a bunch of…"

          Travis held up a hand.  "A bunch of totally professional fellow federal agents," he inserted pointedly.

          Chris's head tilted sideways in feigned confusion that Travis might think he would describe his fellow federal agents any other way. 

          Travis wasn't buying the act.  He glowered harder to no real effect.  "Did you need something else?" he asked, making a concerted effort to sound as irritated and impatient as possible. 

          Chris appeared to ponder that for a moment.  "Yes," he said with a slow smirk, "but I'm not allowed to leave the building."

          Travis reached over to his outbox and handed him three manila folders.  "That's right," he agreed darkly.  "So while you're waiting, you can get your team started on these."

          "Yes sir," Chris said insolently, tucking the folders under his arm and leaving the room.

          Travis was not fooled.  These three folders made for a totally unreasonable nine open cases on Team Seven's collective plate. 

          Any other team leader would have been justifiably indignant.

          Not Larabee.  In fact, if Chris Larabee had had a tail, it would have been wagging.

          Four agents looked up when Chris came back into the bullpen.

          "We got a warrant?" Buck asked hopefully.

          "Nope," Chris said, passing him the three folders.  "We got cases."

          Buck thumbed through the first two folders.  "Ain't anybody else in this building working?"

          "Who?  That bunch of totally professional fellow federal agents?" Chris asked.

          Buck squinted at him.

          "Is that some kind of new swear word?" Vin asked. 

          Chris grinned at Vin.  "It is now."

          Buck snorted.  "Ezra went to ballistics.  Josiah went to keep him company."

          Chris stopped to look back at him.  "How'd that work?"

          "Don’t know yet," Buck answered.  "But if you want in the pool, Vin laid double odds on Ezra ditching him before they made it out of the building."

          Chris snorted.

          He looked at J.D.  "We're keeping a low profile today," he said, eyes still locked on J.D.  "Stay in the bullpen.  Let Ezra and Josiah know as soon as they get back."

          J.D. looked worried, and Buck scowled at Chris.

          The kid swallowed hard.  "Is there something we ought to know?" he asked, but his voice stayed level and calm.

          "Nothing new," Chris said.  He swept his gaze across Nathan and Vin and Buck, too.  "Just think of it as being grounded.  No TV.  No playing outside."

          "Travis grounded us?" Buck demanded.

          "No," Chris answered.  "Travis grounded me.  I'm grounding the rest of you."

          "That's not fair," Buck answered on everyone's behalf.

          "Keep it up." Chris said far too cheerfully.  "I can think of something else."

          "Yes, Dad," Vin inserted hurriedly before Buck could put his big foot in his mouth.

          Chris nodded to Vin.  Buck scowled at him behind Chris's back.

          "For how long?" Buck called as Chris disappeared into his office.

          "Until I say so," Chris answered.

          "Just so you know, I got a date," Buck groused.

          "There's a cafeteria upstairs," Chris replied.

          "Pizza's good," Vin said, tossing a faxed copy of the day's menu across the desks toward Buck.

          "Thanks for the backup there, Junior," Buck said without a trace of gratitude. 

          It was nice to hear J.D. laugh. 

 

 

          Gerald Gillingham only took the phone call because D'Aprix kept calling and wouldn't take no for an answer.  He had turned off his cell phone, so D'Aprix had started calling Bernadette, who was now looking just a little frazzled—and Bernadette never looked frazzled. 

          Gillingham excused himself from his client and went into the outer office.

          "I'm in a client meeting," he said irritatedly into the phone, by way of greeting.

          "Too bad," Cyril said.  "You can probably expect to be meeting with the police, too."

          "What?" Gillingham asked, the sharpness of his tone startling Bernadette.  He moved farther from her desk.

          "The information you gave me last night came from a stolen file."

          Gillingham shook his head and let out a noise of undiluted skepticism.  "That's ludicrous," he said.  "Where did you get that idea?"

          "From the police detective who came to see me this morning," Cyril answered.  "I'm telling you that information was from a file that was stolen from the ATF records.  So you better be able to tell the police how you got possession of it."

          Gillingham somehow managed not to sputter.  "There must be hundreds of ways to get that same information," he said, trying for smooth.  "I'm sure this isn't a problem."

          "So long as you used one of those hundreds of ways, then there won't be a problem," Cyril answered tightly. 

          "Don't worry," Gillingham said.  It was the calm voice.  The one that exuded pure confidence.  The one he used with hysterical clients because D'Aprix sounded like he might be at the end of his rope.

          "Gerald," D'Aprix practically stuttered.  "There's an anti-defamation lawsuit hanging over my head, thanks to you!  I don't need a scandal about stolen ATF files.  I am not going to be your accomplice in this."

          Gillingham frowned and then he scowled.  He lowered his voice several more notches.  "You didn't tell them where the info came from, of course."  There was a definite threat in his voice now.

          Perhaps D'Aprix didn't notice it.

          "I certainly did," D'Aprix spluttered.  Then his tone hardened a degree.  "I told them you gave me the information but I didn't know where you got it.  There's your out.  You take it and do whatever you want with it.  I'm ending our association right now."

          "That would be unwise," Gillingham intoned.  "You can't afford to make me your enemy."

          "And I can't afford to keep you as a friend," Cyril answered.  "Good luck, Gerald.  But don't call my office anymore unless it's a matter pertaining to the neighborhoods I serve."

          "Cyril," Gillingham growled into the phone. 

          There was no one on the other end.

          He stabbed the end call button and swore hard enough for Bernadette to look up in concern.

          "I need you to drop everything and start searching every channel you can think of," he said, advancing on her desk.  He grabbed a pad of paper, took the pen right out of her hand, and scribbled down a list.  "Find this information.  And find it in the next hour."

          He looked at the clock and hoped an hour would be enough.

          Her eyes got wide as she read the list.

          "Just do it," he snapped.  "Don't ask any questions.  Just do it."

          He stalked away, pausing only to collect his professional mask and straighten his suit before he went back inside with his client.  An important client.  A paying client. 

          It didn't figure how one little pro bono "Let me do this for a percentage of the proceeds.  It won't cost you a thing from your own pocket.  I can get you some justice." suit meant to boost him and his reputation out of this crappy little city could cost him so damn much.  How did that happen?

          He focused harder on his client, nodded, and smiled.

          "Yes," he said confidently in response to a request that had moved suddenly much farther down Gillingham's priorities.  "I can do that for you."

          It was thirty more minutes before he could convince the man to leave.  Thirty minutes before the polite goodbyes and calm assurances.  Thirty more damn minutes.  He expected the cops to bust down his door any second now.  Maybe the federal agents.  It would be totally out of line for Larabee to come down here himself.  He was sure of it.  But he wasn't sure Larabee would much care.

          He ordered his palms not to sweat.

          The man in the pale suit left through the glass doors into an empty lobby.

          Gillingham rounded on Bernadette.  "Well?" he demanded.

          She opened her mouth and blinked overly done-up eyes and could not seem to form coherent words.

          "What," Gilingham growled out one syllable at a time, "Have.  You.  Found?

          "I'm trying," she bleated out.  "I'm searching every database and watchdog group on the internet."

          "I'm searching places I have no right to be," she hissed, "under false pretenses, and I have made three phone calls to FBI headquarters in Atlanta in the last twenty minutes."

          "And?" he repeated, leaning forward and keeping his hands firmly clenched on the half-wall that surrounded his reception area, fearing he might just shake her if she didn't give him something he could use.

          She actually looked scared.  She scrabbled to find a particular pink Post-it note among the several scattered over her desk.

          "I found a newspaper story about the destroyed warehouse," she said, words falling rapidly over themselves.  "I didn't find any court records, though.  I don't know about official complaints."

          She stopped speaking.

          "That's it?" he asked.  He reached over the wall and started peeling up the Post-it notes, flipping them right side up and scanning them.

          "Who's this?" he demanded, shaking one of the small pink papers in her direction.  "Mickey somebody?"

          Bernadette grabbed the paper from his hand and glanced furtively toward the lobby doors.

          "Mickey Aguilar," she said, her voice not much more than a harsh whisper.. 

          "Is it a harassment complaint?" Gillingham fired back.

          "He's a mobster!" Her voice held a note of pleading.  "They call him Mickey No-Neck."

          "But Larabee harassed him?"  He might be clutching at straws here.

          "Gerald," Bernadette implored him, her face not six inches from his own.  "You can't build a harassment case from a guy who says the good guys used excessive force to keep him from selling rocket launchers to a drug lord in El Salvador."

          He did like a challenge.

          "Gerald, please," she said breathlessly.  "I like working here.  I don't want to lose my job because you go to jail.  And," she added, with a lot more courage than Gerald had expected, "I'm not going to jail for you."

          He regained control.  "Fine," he said coldly.  He took hold of one of her hands.  It was shaking.  "I am not asking you to do anything unethical or illegal," he said firmly, hypnotically.  He half-expected her to repeat the words back to him.  "Keep looking.  Use all the resources you can think of."

          "And don't worry," he said soothingly.  "No one here is going to jail."

          _And if someone here_ is _going to jail,_ he thought darkly, _it sure as hell isn't going to be me._

          He shut the door to his office good and tight before making his next call.

          He felt his face turn a dark red when it went to voice mail.  "Healey," he spat.  "You better goddamn call me back in the next five minutes or I will put Nira's thugs on your tail and drag your ass here.  You hear me?"

          The man had one chance to plead his case unless the cops arrived first.  If that happened, all bets were off.  Gerald would hand over Healey, lock, stock, and barrel, with a gift card on top. 

          He pulled out his emergency file and started taking stock of the available strings he could pull if he had to pull strings.  He looked at his watch.  He might have to pull strings.

          The phone rang.  He grabbed it before Bernadette even had time to react.

          "This better be good," he snapped into the receiver.

          "You called?" Healey's flat, gruff voice said.

          "What the hell did you do?" Gillingham snapped.  "You brought me stolen information from a stolen file.  What were you thinking?"

          "Well I didn't steal it," Healey said reasonably, as if that fact explained everything.

          Gillingham felt a vein start to throb in his forehead.  "I paid you good money to get me proof of a past record of harassment, intimidation, and impropriety. "

          "You also wanted it fast.  And I delivered exactly what you asked for.  So what's the complaint?"  Healey said with the kind of calm that made Gillingham suspect that it would take something on the order of having an armed nuclear warhead dropped into his shorts to move him. 

          Gerald, on the other hand, could not afford the kind of thick-headed ignorance that made Healey so calm.  He found himself on his feet and made an effort not to actually scream into the phone.  "And you didn't think that looked just a little too neat and suspicious?"

          "Didn't _you_?" 

          The reply left Gillingham momentarily speechless. 

          "Don't get excited," Healey advised placidly into the silence.

          It took Gillingham two tries to get the words out.  "Don't get excited?"

          "Yeah," Healey grunted.  "Just stay calm.  If the police come by—"

          "When the police come.  Not _if_ the police come.  _When_ the police come," Gillingham snapped.

          Healey's gravelly voice didn't even pause.  "When the police come, just tell them you didn't know the information was stolen.  Give them all the copies and offer them any help they want."

          Gillingham shook his head.  Hard.  Then he shook it again.  It didn't help.

          "You don't really think I'm going to protect you, do you?" Gillingham snarled.  "When they ask me where I got that information, you can expect me to hand over your name, your business card, your phone number and your home address.  I'll even give them directions if they want it.  You're finished, Healey.  That is, if by some miracle you don't go to jail for paying for stolen property."

          Healey answered, completely unruffled.  "You give them whatever information you think is appropriate.  But I'd try not to look too worried, if I was you.  Try for helpful and sincere.  'Cause I'd lay good money down that they ain't all that interested in coming after you.  You didn't steal the file.  You got it third hand.  You look all appalled and apologetic and maybe even a little humble and contrite and they'll walk right out of there.  You look suspicious, though, and they'll start digging a little harder.  And I don't imagine a feller like you will do too well in jail."

          He paused thoughtfully.  "Then again, just the fact that you pissed off a guy like Chris Larabee might make you a few friends on principle."

          A sudden chill went up Gillingham's back.  "What are you saying?" he demanded.

          "I'm saying you got secrets you don't want found out," Healey said, as matter-of-factly as if he were stating the sky over Denver was blue. 

          "I don't—"

          "Gerald, please," the voice interrupted.  "I deal in information.  You don't think I do my research?"

          Gillingham stalled in mid-word.

          "You do what I tell you, you'll be safe enough from the police.  They ain't interested in you."  Then, astonishingly, Healey actually chuckled.  "Matter of fact, ain't much of anyone interested in you right now.  'Cept maybe Larabee and his team.  They're probably interested in you."

          Gerald's mouth went dry.  He swallowed.  Drummed up some saliva.  "Agent Larabee doesn't concern me," he said confidently, despite the strange drumming in the center of his chest.

          "Good for you," Healey said blandly, and, Gillingham began to suspect, perhaps a little bit patronizingly.

          "About the police, though," Healey advised, "you just keep cool.  Give 'em what they ask for, and they'll be on their way without even looking back."

          Suddenly, it occurred to Gillingham that maybe the police weren’t his biggest worry.  

          "Fuck," he said and for the life of him, didn't know whether he had said it out loud or not because the word was still repeating, over and over in his head.

          He hung up the phone and pressed his damp palms down against his pant legs.

          He had to think.  He had to think.  Surely a man with a mind as sharp as his could think his way out of this.  He just needed a little time to think.

          Bernadette's voice, unusually loud, floated through the closed door to his office.

          "Yes, Detective.  I'll tell Mr. Gillingham you are here."

          He hoped she had hidden the Post-it notes. 

          He took a deep breath.

          Stay calm.  That's what Healey had said. 

          Great, he considered.  He was taking advice from a Neanderthal now.  The situation must be dire. 

          There was a knock on the door.

          He breathed in and let the oxygen clear his head.

          "Come in," he called pleasantly, shutting his desk drawer on his open files.

          The door opened to admit a detective from the Denver PD and an agent from the ATF.

          He stood up, palms dry now—at the expense of his nice lightweight wool blend—and shook both their hands.

          "How can I help you, gentlemen?" he asked with earnest sincerity coupled with just the right note of surprise.

          The two men sat down. 

          And he knew this was not going to be short and sweet.

 

 

          Shana couldn't seem to keep her eyes from straying to the cracked face of the clock on the stove.  It agreed with her watch.  She had ascertained that several hours ago.

          She squeezed the innocent ceramic mug in her hands much harder than was necessary and tried to will its borrowed warmth to flow into her fingers and down her arms, but she stayed cold inside.

          Her mother set an identical mug down on the tabletop.  The mugs were ugly, Shana noted critically.  She'd always thought so, but when she first moved here to this city, they didn't have any, and these were a dollar for the whole set.  There were times to be proud and times to be practical.  That had been then.  This was now.  Maybe, at some point, a woman could buy herself a set of mugs she actually liked.

          This was not what was on her mind.  Not really.  And the distraction didn't work.

          With a quiet sigh, her mother lowered herself into the chair on Shana's right.

          Shana put down her ugly cup and reached for the hand offered to her.  The old woman gave Shana's hand a firm squeeze and just held on. 

          The tiniest glow of warmth began to make its way into Shana's fingertips.

 

 

          Buck and Chris stood almost shoulder to shoulder, arguing over the single city block blown up to take up the entire display screen in their conference room.  A building was circled in red.  On that much they seemed to agree.

          From his desk, J.D. watched them, his expression growing more doleful by the minute, as Buck's head went up and down, while his left hand waved vigorously in the direction of the map.  Then Chris's head moved definitively left to right, while his right hand stabbed toward another section of the map.  Try as he might, J.D. could not hear the words.  It was like someone had turned the sound down too low.

          Vin's voice in his ear made him jump.  "Whatcha lookin' at?"

          "Them," J.D. said morosely, pointing toward the backs of the two men in the conference room. 

          Vin followed the trajectory of J.D.'s thumb.  It was a peculiar angle. Not quite from the back but not quite from the side either.  He watched the two of them for a moment before turning back to J.D.

          "They doing anything interesting?"

          The corners of J.D.'s mouth turned down.  "Fighting," he said. 

          That made Ezra whirl almost all the way around in his chair to look.  He turned back, unimpressed. 

          Vin snorted. 

          "That," Ezra said disdainfully.  "Is hardly a fight.  That is more of a heated discussion."

          Vin grinned a lopsided grin and buried his thumbs between his belly and the waistband of his jeans.

          "Hell," he said.  "That ain't hardly even heated."

          "Still," J.D. said, gesturing toward the conference room.  "Everyone's on edge since Chris has us all stuck in here.  And now they're in there fighting."

          Josiah rolled closer around behind J.D. so he could see into the conference room without the filing cabinet being in the way.

          "I agree with Ezra," he pronounced.  "That's not a fight."

          That made Nathan get up and join Josiah just in time to see Buck turn to his right and thump Chris hard in the chest with the back of his hand.

          Chris, in brief profile, looked somewhat offended and brushed at the point of impact with his left hand before turning the pointer finger of death on Buck.  His lips moved and Buck looked thoroughly disgusted.

          "Looks like a fight to me," Nathan demurred.  "A quiet one, though."

          Vin shook his head.  "Nah."

          J.D. and Nathan looked from Vin to Josiah.

          Ezra reached into his desk drawer for his little notebook.  "Gentlemen…" he began.

          "No bet," Nathan said.  "And put that damn thing away.  We got enough problems."

          Ezra sneered in the medic's direction before he put the notebook away again.

          "What makes you two so sure," Nathan demanded, pointing first at Vin and then at Josiah. 

          "Body posture and alignment," Josiah answered sagely, standing up to properly demonstrate.  "Note, the shoulder to shoulder alignment," he said.  "A confrontational position would be more face to face.  Note the close proximity and the mirroring.  Buck points with his left hand, Chris with his right.  Buck strikes Chris with his right hand.  Chris rebuts with his left.  Thus," he finished, "while they are most certainly having a debate, aggression in their posture is not so much directed toward each other as toward the subject at hand and perhaps the debate itself.  Therefore neither a fight nor an argument in the classical sense.  More of a vigorous discussion."

          Josiah crossed his arms and smiled, clearly happy with his diagnosis.

          J.D. and Nathan looked from Josiah to each other and then turned toward Vin.

          "Is that what you were going to say?" Nathan asked sarcastically.

          "Nah," Vin replied.  "I was just going to point out that point where Buck smacked Chris."

          "What about it?" J.D. asked, puzzled.

          Vin grinned and rocked back on his heels before offering into evidence,  "Ain't nobody bleeding.  Ain't nobody runnin'.  Ain't nobody dead."

          Josiah looked at Vin, pursed his lips in consideration and then turned back to Nathan and J.D.  "Can't argue with that," he said sagely and went back to his desk.

          Vin whacked J.D. hard on the arm with the back of his hand. 

          "Come on," he said, jerking his head toward the kitchenette.  "They'll tell us what they decided as soon as they got it all worked out.  I'll split a pack of Twinkies with you.

          "They're my Twinkies!" J.D. said.

          "So what?  You're not gonna share?"

          J.D. trailed after Tanner around the desks.

          "That hurt, you know," J.D. groused rubbing his arm. 

          "Wuss," Vin said, as they disappeared into the tiny room.

 

 

          The conversation, for lack of a better word, replayed repeatedly through Cyril D'Aprix's head.  And no matter how he looked at it, there was still that one part he regretted.  The one where he told Gerald Gillingham not to call him ever again unless it had to do with one of D'Aprix's constituent neighborhoods.  In principle it had been a good idea.  Practically, however, the timing was poor.

          Only after he had hung up the phone did he remember he would have to see Gillingham one more time.  Today.  At one-thirty.  With Shana Morton.   To help her back out of the lawsuit and fire Gillingham.  That was bound to go over well. 

          He was pretty sure his presence at this point would be detrimental to Ms. Morton's cause.  But he had given his word that he would be there to help.  How was he supposed to explain to her it was in her own best interest for him not to be there?  He remembered the fear in her eyes.  She surely shouldn't go alone.

          Then again, the stolen file that was probably in Gillingham's possession could just take care of the problem.  Surely the suspicion was heavy enough for Gillingham to pull out of the case.  Then again, this was Gillingham.  Perhaps pride and vanity overshadowed mere trivialities like the suspicion of being in receipt of stolen property.  Perhaps ethical violations didn't figure nearly as largely as the specter of losing a case.

          He sighed and looked at the clock.

          He would have liked to advise Shana Morton to cancel her meeting and just wait out the events.  But that would look far too suspicious to Gillingham. 

          Time was ticking by.

          He could not go with her to Gillingham's office this afternoon.  That was for sure.  But he felt that he had an obligation to supply a suitable substitute.  After all, he had promised to help.

          It took him another twenty minutes to determine he had no other choices left to him.

          He made the call, rehearsing what he was going to say and coming up with nothing suitable before the man on the other end picked up.

          "It's Cyril D'Aprix," he said and continued on hurriedly before the man could even finish registering his surprise.  "I realize this is highly irregular, but this is a rather delicate matter."  He took a breath.  "If it wouldn't be a conflict of interest, I was hoping you could suggest someone with proper legal experience and an understanding of the events in question to help out a client of ours."

          There was a noncommittal grunt from the other end.  Not surprisingly.

          Cyril sucked in a heavy dose of humility.  "You and I find ourselves on opposite ends of a lawsuit, Mr. Wilder.  But we are not enemies.  And truthfully, you are the most qualified and knowledgable person I can think of.  While you yourself are, unfortunately, out of the question, I would surely appreciate anyone you can recommend to help."

          There was silence on the other end, and Cyril really hoped it was because Wilder was thinking it over and that he had not been misguided in his faith in Jacob Wilder's compassion.

          "Describe your situation for me," Jacob said finally.  "And if there isn't a conflict of interest, I may be able to suggest a few possibilities for you."

          "That's all I ask," Cyril said. 

          He gave Wilder the short version of the story, what time the meeting was, what Shana Morton's intention was, and why Cyril had said he'd go with her.  He was a bit more circumspect about the reasons he couldn't go along.  Doubtless, if Wilder didn't know about Gillingham's connection to his client's stolen information, then he would very soon.  He would likely figure it out from there.

          Wilder offered him a short list of three names and wished him luck. 

          "Thank you," Cyril said.  "For your discretion.  And your compassion."

          As he hung up, he realized with a pleasant kind of surprise that those last words were, in fact, sincere.  Humility hung like an an odd flavor in his mouth, familiar and almost forgotten.  It was a little bitter at the start but had a nice finish that tasted mostly of relief. 

          "Marva," he called, opening up his office door again. 

          She looked up from her desk.

          "Could you help me with a little project?" he asked. 

          "Yes, Mr. D'Aprix," she said and her voice was lit with earnest eagerness. 

          He handed her the Post-it note.  "Can you call these three people and see if any of them are available at one thirty today."

          "Yes, Mr. D'Aprix," she said, all business.

          He smiled.  "As soon as you find someone who is available, put them through to me so I can explain the details."

          She nodded her head.  "Yes, Mr. D'Aprix," she said for the third time, and he smiled.

          It occurred to him there was something he hadn't said in a while.  Maybe now wasn't too soon.

          "You're doing a great job here, Marva," he said. 

          She denied it but not before he'd seen her face light up with a little blush of pleasure. 

          Yes, indeed, he reflected.  Maybe a dose of humility was good for the soul.

          Now all he needed was a little good luck—for himself and for Shana Morton both. 

          He went back into his office, leaving the door open behind him.  There was work to do, after all, although it might prove hard to do with fingers crossed and half an ear on Marva's progress with the phone calls. 

 

 

          At ten minutes to noon, Team Seven was thrown into sudden action by a fanfare of cell phones ringing.  Seven of them were on their feet at the word "go".  Five went for their team equipment lockers.  One went for the van.  One took the stairs up two at a time.

          Chris Larabee pushed his way right through the doors into Orin's inner office.  Deborah didn't attempt to stop or even stall him.  And there was no point buzzing Orin.  Mere nerve impulses, thoughts, and sound vibrations couldn't cover the requisite distance faster than Larabee could on a mission.

          Orin put down his phone.

          "We're leaving the building," Larabee said succinctly.

          "Now?" Orin asked. 

          "Bartok just made a mistake.  The door's open."

          Normally this would have been good news.  Great news.  But right now?  Just when there was a chance for some of the big black cloud hanging over Team Seven to break up, disperse, blow onward and darken the sky above someone else's head. 

          But catching bad guys, pouncing on mistakes and cracking criminal operations wide open was what they did.  And they were damn good at it, too—if occasionally a trifle unrestrained.

          Orin realized Chris was just being courteous.  He wasn't actually asking for permission. 

          And to be blunt, it wasn't like Orin was ever really going to tell him "no" anyway.  No, don't catch the bad guys.  Wait until a time better suited to your own and your team's reputation.  Put yourselves before the public interest. 

          Like Chris Larabee or anyone else on the team ever looked at their jobs like that. 

          "Try not to infuriate anyone," Travis said instead.

          Chris cocked his head to one side and looked at him.  "Orin," he said patiently, "with any luck we'll be arresting a half a dozen people.  Someone's bound to get pissed off."

          Travis stifled an unwilling snort.  "You know what I mean," he said threateningly.

          He got a backwards wave of farewell as Chris left at a swift trot. 

          Doubtless the van was already running hot and waiting for him at the door.

          He realized the team leader had given him no assurances.

          He rolled his eyes toward the ceiling.  _Please, please, please let this bust go smoothly,_ he silently begged whatever winds of fate or gods of fortune were on watch today. _No incidents.  No bad press.  No casualties.  No claims of excessive force._

 _It could happen,_ he told himself.  In fact, if he were being totally rational, it generally did.  Ninety-nine percent of the time.  But then they tended to give that last one percent of cases to Team Seven, which seemed to contain that one percent of agents.  Which bumped their statistic down to something more like 89 percent of time.  Which put Travis on the carpet upstairs eleven percent of the time and gave him an unenviable twenty percent of case post-mortem discussions at the quarterly status and review boards.

          _Please,_ he repeated. 

          He was going to have plenty enough to talk about this quarter as it was.

 

 

          Shana Morton looked nervous.  That was Lainey Chiao's first impression of the woman, as she stepped up to greet her on the sidewalk a block from the building where Gerald Gillingham had his offices. 

          Lainey couldn't exactly blame her.  Gillingham overawed a lot of people who hadn't spent enough time or had enough experience with people like him to be able to see through that shiny, polished veneer.  And beneath that, if you asked Lainey's opinion, the man was nothing but a conniver and a bully.

          What really amazed her, though, was how many educated and intelligent people failed to see through him.  She could not fathom how that could be. 

          In her opinion, it was people like Gillingham who continued to give lawyers a bad name.  It made her angry to think about how he had foisted himself on a woman in Shana Morton's position far too soon after her son's shooting to really allow her to have been thinking clearly. 

          Perhaps now—the  way the rumor mill was gleefully buzzing among Gillingham's enemies and detractors and those who were merely jealous of his slick style and successful track record—more people would finally get a whiff of the rotten underpinnings of the man's sparkling Armani-clad career.

          She kept all that to herself.

          She only gripped Shana's hand and introduced herself, thanking her for coming early.  They had twenty minutes.  She took Shana for a cup of strong, hot, and very good coffee from a bakery cafe around the corner, where, sitting in the sunshine on an off-white metal mesh chair at a matching metal table, she filled Shana in on what Cyril D'Aprix had told her, and she listened intently as Shana told her the rest.

          "Don't worry," she said.  "You have every right to terminate your agreement with your lawyer."

          Shana looked relieved.

          "However," Lainey said gravely, "the difficulty will be in the terms of the contract.  You may owe him his regular fee for the work he has done so far."

          Shana's eyes widened.  "He said he would take his fee from the case when we won.  He said I wouldn't owe him anything if we lost."  Her eyebrows came down in an odd combination of confusion and indignation.  "He never said nothing about paying him up front."

          "They usually don't," Lainey said and tried not to sound perturbed. 

          Shana didn't ask her what she meant quite by "they" and Lainey was glad, as she was not sure she could do her feelings justice.

          "It's a different ballgame when you fire a lawyer than when you win or lose a lawsuit," she explained.

          "But I can't afford to pay a lawyer," Shana protested.  And in her eyes Lainey saw something like dread.  "I can't even afford to pay a cheap lawyer.  And Gillingham isn't cheap, is he?"

          Lainey shook her head.  "No, he isn't."

          "But don't start worrying yet," she advised.  "You have more power here than you know.  Let's see how the conversation goes.  And if it comes down to some kind of negotiating, let me do the talking.  I'm working for you, remember."

          "I appreciate all this," Shana said morosely.  "But you should know that I can't pay you either right now."

          "That's not a problem," Lainey answered.  "I'm not expecting you to pay me for this."  She smiled reassuringly and said, "Sometimes even lawyers just do what's right."

          That made Shana smile.

          "You ready?" Lainey asked brightly.

          Shana bit her lip but only for a moment.  Then the apprehension faded and she looked at Lainey with determination.  "Yes," she answered. 

          At the appointed hour, they arrived in Gerald Gillingham's outer office.  Lainey held open the door for Shana and then made introductions to the receptionist.

          "Let me tell him you're here," Bernadette answered, and Lainey noted she looked a little frayed around the edges.

          There was a hushed conversation on the phone.

          "Mr. Gillingham will see you," Bernadette said and gestured expansively toward the large wooden office door at the other end of the reception space.

          Gerald checked his reflection in a mirror he kept in his desk drawer.  The last thing he needed right now was Shana Morton, who couldn't make up her mind whether she wanted to win her case or lose it. 

          His reflection looked back up at him, and he practiced radiating calm, cool, confidence.  He rolled his shoulders. 

          Damn the police and damn the ATF, too. 

          He had told both investigators that at this point in his career, he used investigators and research assistants to get his information and he relied on their professionalism.  He had been careful to explain just how appalled and dismayed he was to learn that the information he had received in support of his most recent case had been obtained unethically and possibly illegal.

          He gave them Healey's name and contact information and pleaded a lapse of memory while spitting out a partial list of the plausible, marginally related internet sites Bernadette had found.  He told them he could not remember the citations exactly, but if they wanted to wait, he could try to find out.

          The two men had looked at each other and Gerald had a bad moment as the sweat trickled down his back and he thought they might agree to wait.

          Gerald tried to look chagrined as he handed over the papers that careless idiot Healey had given him. 

          _Yes, that was it.  No, there were no more._

 _Yes, he was sure._

          _Believe me,_ he had said earnestly, at least he hoped it was earnestly, _the last thing I'd want to do is find myself holding onto ill-gotten goods._

          Neither investigator blinked.

          They had thanked him and got up only to turn back at the door and ask him a few more questions.

          The hair at the nape of his neck clung damply to his flesh while he answered and silently willed them to be on their way. 

          Sitting here now, he believed he had pulled it off, cast suspicion and reproach far from himself—at least as far as the legal system was concerned. 

          But he knew there was another shoe to drop. 

          A big heavy boot.

          Any moment, Larabee's lawyer or, worse yet, Larabee himself, would start looking into just how D'Aprix came to be in possession of the information Gerald had given him.  Larabee was probably intimately aware of the contents of the file.  Larabee was a trained investigator and former Special Forces officer.  Larabee knew how to track down criminals and put them out of commission.  Some claimed he had a penchant for violence.  Larabee knew where Gerald's office was.

          Allegations of harassment and pending lawsuits weren't much of a protection in the face of actual physical violence perpetrated on his person.

          But then, he was going to have to worry about that a little later because Shana Morton and some lawyer woman were coming through his office door, and he was going to have to look like Shana Morton's problems really were among his top five concerns right now.

          He greeted them cheerfully.

          He looked Lainey Chiao over.  A petite Eurasian woman in a green suit of middling quality, dark hair pulled back too tightly from her forehead.  There was nothing about her particularly worthy of note, but something poked indistinctly at the back of his head where his subconscious sat.

          "What can I do for you?" he asked, folding his hands on the desktop. 

          Shana took a breath.

          Gerald caught Lainey's tiny nod.

          "I want to drop the lawsuit against Agent Dunne."  She said it quietly, but the words and their import seemed to ring out deafeningly, bouncing from wall to wall, and reverberating in the small room.

          Caught off guard, Gerald stared at her in disbelief, disbelief that she of little income or education, of next to no net worth and precious little to show for the years she had walked the earth, could possibly be firing the kind of lawyer she could never have hired in her dreams from a case that _he_ had built from scratch.  It was inconceivable.  What could possibly be gained from such a ludicrous decision? 

          And yet, here she was.

          He'd have to play this carefully with this Lainey Chiao sitting sourly in the next seat.  She looked ticked off.  Probably with doing pro bono work.  Or maybe intern work.  She hardly looked like she was old enough to be a qualified lawyer in the state of Colorado.  Why did she look familiar?

          He fixed his gaze on Shana Morton and asked, "Have you given up on the idea of justice, then?"  He let it sound just a little bit accusatory.

          And was rewarded by the silent wince that crossed her forehead and rested in the frozen "oh" of her mouth.

          A voice that wasn't hers spoke on her behalf.  "In this case, I think you and Ms. Morton have different ideas of justice."

          He slid his eyes over to the other woman.  There was something in her tone that made him certain they had met before.

          He ignored her, focusing hard on Shana and lowering his voice to intimate, confidential levels.  "I know it's been hard.  But you can't let these people intimidate you.  An injustice was done to your family.  To you.  You can't give up on making them pay for your suffering."

          "Mr. Gillingham," Lainey said.  There was a plate of hard steel under her velvety tone.  "I'm sure you can appreciate how hard this decision was for Ms. Morton to make.  No one is more aware than she and her family of the injustices in her situation.  But the decision is made."

          "Fine," he said easily, changing tacks, even sounding agreeable.  "It is the client's prerogative, of course."

          He smiled thinly and reached for a file on the counter behind his desk.

          "There is the matter of payment, however," he said and watched Shana Morton's eyes widen and skitter toward Lainey Chiao.

          He laid a contract out on the desk where both Shana Morton and Lainey Chiao could easily see Shana Morton's wavering signature.

          Lainey picked up the contract.  There were several seconds of silence as Shana Morton looked on anxiously and grooves appeared and grew deeper on Ms. Chiao's brow.

          "You can see the contract has been signed by both parties," he said helpfully.

          Chiao looked up at him.  "Seriously, Gerald?"

          It was not quite the reaction he had expected.

          "It's a standard contract, Ms. Chiao," he said, affronted.  "Typical in fact, in the face of a client's decision not to continue with the case.  And totally reasonable, I might add, to expect remuneration for the work I have put into the case so far."

          "Your estimate of which is…?" 

          He pulled out a calculator and punched in some numbers, consulting the file in front of him.

          He wrote an amount down on a Post-It note and handed it to Shana Morton.

          Her eyes flashed wide before Lainey Chiao plucked it deftly out of her hands.

          "Give or take," Gerald said reasonably.

          She looked at the number on the Post-It and then at Shana Morton.

          Then she folded her hands in her lap and looked at Gerald.  It was the posture of someone about to say something she would rather not have to say out loud.  He could tell by the sour lay of her lips, as if she held a bitter fruit in her mouth and had no place to spit it out.

          He looked blandly back at her.

          Then she cleared her throat.

          "Prior to entering into this contract, did you ascertain my client's ability to pay you in the event she terminated your services?"

          Meaning Shana Morton was poor as dirt.  No surprise there.  Still…  "Arrangements can be made," he said pleasantly.

          Shana Morton looked from Gillingham to Chiao in dismay.  She opened her mouth, and Gerald feigned his interested attention at her proposal.

          Lainey cut her off, though.

          "Mr. Gillingham," she said calmly, placing the contract and the sticky note both on his desk again.  "Alone, the circumstances surrounding how you, shall we say _took on_ this case are enough to pique the interest of an ethics review board.  Is this really the right time for you to add fuel to the fire?"

          Gillingham schooled his expression quickly.  A sudden, vivid flash of memory took him back six months to a conference on Law, Ethics, and Leadership where Lainey Chiao had been introduced to him by a mutual law professor acquaintance.  He remembered she did not laugh at his little jokes.  And he had wondered if she wasn't maybe taking the whole seminar just a little too seriously.

          He hedged.  "I don’t know what you mean," he said and reminded himself rationally that there was no way she could possible know about the visit from the police.  Not yet. 

          She looked at the contract.  "Don't you?" she asked.  "I would think you'd be passingly familiar with the terms harassment and intimidation, also ambulance chasing, and perhaps extortion."

          He glowered at her.  "I resent the implication," he said sharply.  "I—"

          She cut him off, and he was so surprised he actually stopped talking.  "Or we can just let it all be finished right now with the termination of her contract."

          "Your option," she said.  She looked at her watch. 

          She wasn't kidding.  And she probably wasn't just blustering either.  She seemed like the type who took all the rules seriously, not just the ones that mattered.

          He smiled through his resentment, big and toothy.  "As I said," he began, clearing his throat.  "It is the client's prerogative."

          He took the contract back. 

          "I am sorry to see our professional association end," he said to Shana Morton and didn't care if his entire office reeked of disingenuousness.

          She nodded.

          He called for the receptionist and let his smile turn cold and hard on Lainey Chiao while he asked Bernadette to place Shana Morton's file in the completed casefiles and to mark the contract fulfilled under the receipts and invoices and then to shred the original.

          If Bernadette was surprised, she didn't bat an eye, just came for the file folder and left.

          Then Lainey Chiao and Shana Morton followed in her wake. 

          Gillingham sat glowering at the door still unable to fathom the pure indignity of getting fired by someone not fit to pass judgment on which shoes he should wear this week.

          It burned.

          But he had bigger problems.  Now he had an anti-defamation suit over his head and had no ammunition.

          Or did he?

          He sat bolt upright in his chair and thanked God that he was smarter by half than all the ATF agents in the world and Chris Larabee especially.  He could have kissed his own reflection.  It was too perfect, and he could stick it to Larabee without the man ever being savvy enough to know.

          He laughed to think of Cyril D'Aprix ending their association so early.  Served him right to have to fend for himself.  Perhaps that was even the topping on the cake.

          " Bernadette!" he hollered.  "Get me a contact number for Agent Chris Larabee in the Denver-based ATF."

          "You're joking," she said.

          "I'm not," he answered.

          "He's suing you," she reminded him.

          "Not for long," he said, practically humming.  What Chris Larabee did not know could only help Gerald Gillingham.

 

 


	19. Chapter 19

          When Chris Larabee's office phone rang, he was not in a position to answer it, being approximately nine miles away, as the crow flies, and in a very goal-oriented free-fall through eight feet of space in utter violation of Orin Travis's only request.

          The crash to earth was spectacular to say the least, including a two and a half foot slide along a section of broken asphalt amalgam, using Evor Bartok's person as a surfboard.

          When the dust settled, Bartok lay still and felt the jelly his bones had been ground to and regretted the great swaths of skin torn from his body and undoubtedly still plastered to the pavement.  He tasted blood in his mouth. 

          He barely felt the weight lift off of him.  His arm, way over there and barely connected to him, was lifted.  For a moment a bright silver bracelet flashed in the sunlight glinting off the identical circlet dangling from the loop around his left wrist.  Then his right wrist was lifted into the air.  There was a click, and now he had a matched set.  He stared past the cuffs binding his wrists together, past his own hands, and way up to the man who stood above him, holding onto the chain between his wrists with one hand.  From far away up there a quiet voice floated back down. 

          "Bartok's secure," it said.

          When he found his tongue and ascertained that it worked and that his mouth was not full of loose teeth and that the rushing in his ears had dimmed and maybe his bones weren't jelly after all, he looked up at the man and said in his deep, gravelly, and heavily accented voice, "I bet you played football, eh."

          The man grinned at that, revealing teeth now stained red

          Then suddenly two other men were lifting Bartok to his feet.

          "Nice tackle!" said the shorter, dark-haired one on his left.

          Bartok groaned and stepped gingerly onto a leg that was at least bent if not broken.

          The other man, the tall black one, scowled at him angrily—probably for trying to run off with his handcuffs.

          Bartok raised his wrists toward the blond man who had brought him down.

          "I had to try, eh?" he said philosophically.  Those were the rules after all.  Run when you can.  Survive you must.

          The man didn't argue with him.  Just nodded, equally philosophically and gestured to the other two to take Bartok away, probably to wherever the others from his crew had been taken, the ones who couldn't get away.  He would see soon enough who was left.  He liked to think maybe one of the younger, faster ones had run the gauntlet and succeeded, but then he was not sure any of them were all that smart yet.

          He blinked at the large police van that loomed up before him.  From the size of it, he supposed there would be lots of company on the trip to the police station, or the ATF station.  He did not even know what it was called.  It was no matter. 

          The nice part about doing business in America was there were rules.  Even for illegal businesses.  He learned the business from his father, who learned it from his grandfather.  Business in the old country had been much harder in his grandfather's day.  Bartok would not be returning from jail emaciated, with mysterious burn marks, with bones beaten crooked and badly healed, or even with mysterious scars.  As a boy, he did not know whether to be more scared of what had been done to his grandfather or of the man that had survived it unbowed.

          Here he had a lawyer on speed dial.  He had loopholes.  He had rights. 

          And he could start again as soon as the law was finished with him. 

          He was not worried.

          He was a citizen.

          Chris was brushing road dust off his sleeves and pants and black Kevlar when Buck's voice called for him.  "Hey, Chris," said the mic in his ear.  "You're gonna want to see this."

          The man couldn't have sounded more keyed up if he had just discovered a room full of scantily-clad lingerie models.

          Chris headed back toward the building at a jog and took the stairs up to find Buck and Vin, grinning and whooping and slapping each other's backs.

          "When Bartok screws up, he really screws up," Buck said happily at Chris's entrance. 

          "Is that what I think it is?" Chris intoned, approaching a small stack of packing crates marked _Lilyfield Javalique Apple Green 6 oz. Demitasse_.  One of the the crates was open.  It did not contain tiny cups of apple green or any other color. 

          "Well it ain't a box of teacups," Buck answered happily.

          No one touched the box. 

          "Insight Tech AN slash PEQ dash 2A Infrared Aiming Laser Sight," Vin recited, his longing tone eerily reminiscent of Homer Simpson speaking of donuts.

          Chris stood and stared at the box and the four other boxes.  "Are these all laser sights?" he asked.

          "I don't know," Buck said.  "We're just waiting for the go ahead to open 'em and see."

          "How many are in the box, Vin?" Chris asked.

          "Eight of these babies," Vin said.  "You know with a pair of night vision goggles and one of these puppies, I could…"

          Buck rolled his eyes.

          "What?" Vin's tone was hurt.

          Chris interrupted them.  "Assuming we're not looking at china here, that's around forty sights."

          He looked at Buck, who nodded enthusiastically.  "I know.  Bartok ended up with forty of the missing military sights.  He didn't even have a chance to put them away yet."

          "If we'd got here a couple hours earlier, we probably could have watched them unload 'em off the truck," Vin grumbled.  "Woulda saved us a lotta steps."

          Chris thought for a minute. 

          "Boys," he says.  "Let's see if we can draw a line from Scofield to Evor Bartok.  And maybe we'll be able to tell Major Dade where his other forty sights went."

          "We'll save the boxes," Buck confirmed.  "See if crime scene can figure out how U.S. military laser-guided sights ended up in boxes from Lilyfield China."        

          "Hey Chris," Vin said, "You think maybe Dade might let us have one of these.  You know for doin' such a good job and helpin' out our country?  An' if you ask real nice?"

          "No," Chris said.  And then he was on the phone with police and crime scene units.

          Buck shook his head at Vin.

          Vin shrugged.  "Be a shame not to ask," he said.  His tone was indifferent, but the look in his eye said something else entirely.

          Buck shook his head.  "Boy, we need to get you a life."

          But Vin didn't hear him, he was too busy getting gloves from the nearest CSU tech so he could get his hands on one of those sights before the U.S. military came and swooped them all out of his grasp forever—or at least the foreseeable immediate future.  He was an optimist.

          "Hey!" Buck called jogging after Chris.  He caught up to him at the top of the stairwell.  "You really take Bartok down on a flying tackle?"

          Chris shrugged.  "He was trying to run away."

          Buck grinned.  "He's gonna be pissed when he sees we took the whole crew.  Eight guys in all."

          "That's too bad," Chris said, his voice utterly neutral.

          Buck frowned.  "It's brilliant.  Perfect.  An unmitigated victory.  What do you mean 'That's too bad'?"

          Chris smirked crookedly.  "Travis told me not to piss anyone off."

          Buck's sharp laugh echoed in the stairwell.  "You?" he chortled.  "Fat chance of that."

          He followed Chris down the stairs.

          "Bartok's too laid back to let a little setback like this bother him," Chris said.  "He'll do his time, if he gets any, and come back in some new illegal incarnation."

          That was true enough Buck thought. "Life in America good," he ground out in a very bad Eastern bloc accent.  "No gulag.  No problems."

          Chris eyed him sourly.  "Remember when you actually spoke Slovak?" he said pointedly.  "And Russian?  And Croatian?"

          "And Bosnian," Buck pointed out.

          Chris shook his head.  "What you did in Bosnian was not 'speaking Bosnian'.  It was more like charades."

          "I got my point across didn't I?" Buck replied smugly.

          Chris couldn't argue with that.

          They waded through the ant-swarm of police and crime techs that had arrived on scene and found their way to the team van, which Josiah had brought in for the clean-up.

          Chris clapped Nathan on the shoulder.  Nathan looked at him disgustedly, so Chris squeezed.  Hard.

          "It happens," Chris said quietly.

          Whatever J.D. had been saying with that insolent grin on his face, whatever teasing Nathan had been patiently enduring for letting a man built like a bowling ball with legs run off with Nathan's handcuffs dangling from his wrist, it ended.

          The grin vanished from J.D.'s face, and the kid went to work securing the equipment with Josiah's assistance.

          "How's your face?" Buck said cheekily into Nathan's ear as he went by.  "We get that on film?"

          Nathan glared at Buck to zero effect.  He was not looking forward to going to the Saloon tonight.

          "Let's move, boys," Chris ordered.  "Bartok here just handed us a nice little present.  Let's hit the trail while it's still daylight."

          "I'll go get Vin," Buck volunteered.  After all, someone had to drag his scrawny Texan ass down here.  "We'll bring back one of the sights," he said.  "Assuming Vin don't already have one stashed away in his pocket."

          The police van carrying Bartok pulled out. 

          Chris made a call to Major Dade.

          Fifteen minutes later they pulled away in the team van.

          "So, three guesses what we're doing tomorrow," Buck said happily.

          Vin, leaning his head back against the bench seat had his eyes closed and a smile on his face.  Chris and Buck exchanged a look. 

          "Now we know what to get him for his birthday," Buck half-whispered. 

          Chris snorted and let the rest of the post-bust chatter wash around him like waves foaming on the shore.  Next steps and plans of action linked themselves into multiple chains and trajectories, stretching out into the next several weeks. 

          There was a lot to do.

          And he smiled, too.

 

 

          Chris's voice mail light was blinking when he got back to his office.  He eyed it dubiously.  There were no messages on his cell phone.  If Travis had something to say about the bust, good or bad, he wouldn't have put it on voice mail.

          He put off listening to it until he had finished making arrangements with Major Walter Dade, U.S. Army Criminal Investigations Division and seen that the sights were secured for recovery, except the one that had been secured for evidence.  Dade and a pair of his investigators would be arriving on the red-eye tomorrow to claim his sights and sit down to a tactical meeting with Team Seven.  He cleared the priorities with the Crime Scene Unit, which was less than pleased to be informed that the U.S. government wanted their evidence back post-haste:  _So just work right through the night, okay?  What?  There are nearly 15 hours left for you to work your magic.  Get to it._

          Chris was a lot more polite than that.  There was no point in pissing off the Crime Scene guys.  They all had to work together if they wanted to stop crime.

          However, there were two or three directors in the chain of command who were already salivating at the news that Team Seven had captured Bartok, almost his entire crew, and gained a hot lead on an Army CID stolen weapons investigation.  They weren't nearly as tactful when talking to Crime Scene.  The limits of time and physics didn't matter much when the brass and the U.S. government wanted something fast.

          Chris quietly left the scene.

          Now he had no more excuses.  He gave the blinking amber eye one last baleful stare and then stabbed the buttons that would dial into his voice mail.

          Gerald Gillingham's was the last voice he expected to hear.

          In fact he sat stock-still, stone-struck with surprise, the phone still hugging his ear for so long that Buck wandered in.

          "You all right, Stud?" he asked quietly from the doorway.

          Chris blinked, as if waking back up.  He motioned Buck to come all the way in.  "Shut the door," he said.

          Frowning now, Buck did as he was asked. 

          "Listen," Chris said.  He redialed voice mail and put the speaker phone on but quietly.

          Buck perched one cheek on the corner of the desk and listened gravely to the message.

          He looked at Chris. 

          Then he waved his hand at the phone.  "Play it again," he said.

          And Chris did.

          "He wants to meet with you?"  Buck asked, not sure whether he was asking or just summarizing.  "Face to face.  Without your lawyer.  To discuss a mutual accommodation that will benefit both of you?"

          "Yep," Chris said, leaning back in his chair.  He steepled his fingers and stared at the phone.  "Face to face.  Just him and me.  Man to man."

          Buck almost choked on that.  "Man to weasel's more like it," he said.

          "I ought to call Wilder," Chris said thoughtfully.

          Buck wasn't finished.  "Man to twitchy-nosed rodent."  He was evidently on a roll.

          "That would be the smart move, of course," Chris mused.

          "Man to mangy, yellow cur-dog."

          "That's why I have a lawyer, after all."

          "Man to slithering sidewinder."

          "But then, I may not be all that smart."  He looked up at Buck.

          "Take backup," Buck said.

          "Like who?" Chris asked.

          "Me!" Buck retorted, and the look on his face spoke volumes of indignation that Chris would even have to ask.

          Chris hesitated.

          "For God's sake," Buck clucked.  "It's not a hostage exchange.  It's a meeting with a lawyer. A slimy scuzzball lawyer, but still, it's not like he's going to call it off because you didn't follow the ransom directions."

          Chris narrowed his eyes and smirked.  "In that case, wouldn't I be better off taking the sniper?"

          "The sniper is too busy looking at centerfolds of rifle sights," Buck said.  "He'd be distracted."

          He looked at Chris.

          "Come on," Buck said finally.  "Call the man back.  Arrange a meet.  I can be ready as soon as you are."

          Chris frowned at him.  "You really are a nosey shit," he said finally because they both knew damn well Buck's wanting to go along had nothing to do with thinking Chris might need backup.

          Buck didn't rise to the barb because, one, it was true, and two, it was also old news.

          "I just want a look at the guy," he said.

          Chris rolled his eyes.  "That's how I got tangled up in a lawsuit," he said pointedly.  "I just went down there to have a look at the guy."

          "Well, I have more self-restraint than you do," Buck said confidently.

          Chris didn't even dignify that with a verbal response when a simple gesture could communicate so much more.

 

 

          Buck brought the binoculars along, but Chris drew the line at wearing a wire, which was too bad, but then Buck had very good lip-reading skills and he could use them when he had to.

          He planted himself on a park bench, old-school style with a newspaper—that he promptly folded onto his chest, leaning his head back and letting the sun wash over his closed eyelids and warm his face.  It was a nice day.

          Three or four minutes later, and twenty feet away, Chris, looking like the avenging angel in his black duster—which was way too warm for a day like this one but then Chris was still armed and still wearing asphalt on his pants—met Gerald Gillingham in the middle of a park pathway.

          Nice shoes on Gillingham.  Shiny.  Buck didn't much care for his taste in suits, though.  Then again, Buck wasn't much for suits all together.

          He closed his eyes again and focused in on the voices.

          "Isn't this a little irregular," Chris said acidly.  Buck didn't have to open his eyes to know he had refused to shake the slimy little worm's hand.  Good for Chris.

          Gillingham coughed a little.  "Perhaps," he said.  "I thought it would be easier to broker a deal in person."

          "Why can't you broker this deal with my lawyer?" Chris asked.

          He was half a head taller than Gillingham and even if that weren't true, Buck knew from experience when Chris used _that_ tone you could almost swear he was seven foot twelve. 

          _Intimidation.  Harrassment,_ Buck thought-projected in Chris's direction.  _Let the man speak first.  Then bite his head off._

          Gillingham's reply sounded a little petulant, a little overly patient.  A little bit patronizing.  "Sometimes, Agent Larabee, it is a little more efficacious for two people to just come to the point."

          _Ooh! Big word there, efficacious._

          Buck cringed preventatively, hoping Chris didn't spit out a mocking "Effi-what?" and muck up the entire negotiation.

          _Just get to the damn point, pretty boy.  We don't got all day here._

          "Well here I am," Chris replied, not mollified or encouraging in the least.  "Spit it out.  I've got work to do."

          _You tell him, Stud._

"I'm here to offer you a deal," Gillingham said smoothly.  "Hear me out.  When we've agreed on mutually beneficial terms, then we can both file official papers.  I, of course, will accept your word as binding until then."

          _Naturally._

          Chris was silent.  Buck imagined he was glowering down at the little shyster.

          He could almost hear Gillingham lick his lips.  He nearly opened his eyes to see if the lawyer was wiping sweat off his upper lip yet.

          The man's tone was steady and cock-sure, but Buck could hear the thinness in it.

          _He's hiding something,_ Buck thought.  But then Chris ought to know that.  Chris Larabee was as good at reading people as anyone Buck had ever known.  Better, actually.  It was part of what made him so damn scary.

          "It so happens," Gillingham was saying, "the present standoff in which we find ourselves can be resolved easily enough to everyone's satisfaction—with an added bonus for you."

          Buck could feel Chris's impatience all the way across the path and the grass between Buck's bench and the two men.

          "Go on," Chris said, sounding interested. 

          _Be careful, Hoss._

          "What would you say if I said I were willing to entertain the idea of dropping the wrongful death suit against J.D. Dunne?"

          Buck very nearly sat bolt upright, but he caught himself just in time, and held very still on the bench.

          No wonder Gillingham didn't want any attorneys here. 

          "In exchange for what?" Chris prodded.

          Buck waited.  This was usually the point where Satan revealed himself and asked for the petitioner's soul. 

          "In exchange for dropping your suit against me," Gillingham said.

          There was silence.

          It seemed to drag on for way too long.

          Buck cracked open one eye very slightly to see Chris looking very hard at Gillingham's head.  It was what Buck called Chris's x-ray vision.  It created a very convincing illusion that if he stared long enough, Chris Larabee's eyes would breach the surface of your skull and read whatever secrets were on your mind.  It made people nervous.  Especially the ones who had secrets to read. 

          Sure enough, Gillingham scritched uncomfortably at his forehead.

          Chris spoke very slowly, deliberately weighing each word.  "If I drop my anti-defamation lawsuit against you, you will drop the wrongful death suit against my agent?"

          "That's the idea, Agent Larabee," Gillingham said with forced crispness.

          Buck could see a little damp shine on the man's brow.  It wasn't related to the warmth of the sun.

          Chris, on the other hand, looked cool as a cucumber on ice despite that hot coat.

          Chris asked, "What does your client get out of this?"  His tone was slow and thoughtful.

          Buck could have kicked him. 

          _What kind of a question was that?_ This was J.D. they were talking about here.  Wasn't that more important?

          Gillingham coughed again.  Clearly more uncomfortable this time.  "I don’t see how that concerns you," he said stiffly.

          _Damn right it shouldn't concern him._

          The frosty silence made Gillingham continue.  "I'm here to broker a deal.  If you don't like the terms, then we can see each other in court.  In the meantime, I'm a busy man."  He waited a beat and then made as if to walk away. 

          Buck stiffened.  _Little showboating bastard…_ Still, Chris couldn't possible let him walk away, not when exactly what J.D. needed was right in their hands. 

          Chris blew out a breath of pure exasperation, but his voice carried calmly.  "I wasn't aware we had finished discussing terms."

          From his vantage point, Buck could clearly see something like triumph flash across Gillingham's face.  Of course, there was no trace of it when the man turned back to face Chris.

          "I'm sure a reasonable request can be accommodated," Gillingham said smoothly. 

          Chris fought back a smirk. 

          Buck glowered.  Gillingham really deserved a poke in the mouth.  But  what did Chris mean by terms? 

          _Just close the deal and get J.D. off the hook so we can get the hell out of here,_ Buck thought at Chris's head.

          "When I receive official notification that the lawsuit against J.D. Dunne is dropped, then I will instruct my lawyer to drop the lawsuit against you."

          "Agreed," Gillingham said shortly. 

          The oily little ambulance chaser stuck out his hand.

          Buck bit back a chuckle to see Chris look at it like it was covered with oozing sores.  But he shook it anyway.

          Gillingham smiled a smile he evidently intended to be charming.  "You see how much can be accomplished when two reasonable men such as ourselves are able to speak plainly about our mutual goals."

          Chris did not agree or disagree.  In fact, he probably didn't hear, as he had stuck his hands in his duster pockets was already gliding away well before Gillingham finished.

          He had the gall to call after him.  "We really are on the same side here, Agent Larabee.  We both serve the law."

          It left a bad taste in Buck's mouth. 

          He willed Gillingham to slither away faster.

          Buck waited until the lawyer was out of sight, counted five, and then jumped up to run after Chris, practically giddy with happiness.

          J.D. was in the clear!

 

 

          The elegant BMW chirped a greeting as it unlocked its doors.  Gillingham slid into the driver's seat and smiled.  That had been much easier than anticipated.  Little did Larabee know he was dropping his suit for nothing, that the lawsuit against Dunne was already finished.  And he would never know, as long as Gillingham acted fast.

 

 

          Buck caught up to Chris at the Ram.  He slapped Chris hard on the back. 

          "So now all we do is wait," Buck said happily.  There was a bare moment of silence before he added, "How long do you think it'll be?"

          Chris slanted a look at him from the corner of his eye and opened his driver's side door.  "Shouldn't be too long," he answered, his voice holding a note of irony.  "Wilder told me this morning she wanted to drop the case."

          Buck stared at him.  He gestured at the park behind them.  "So what's with the big covert ops charade?  Why was I sitting in a park lip-reading over a done deal?"

          Chris shrugged.  "Wilder didn't say it was a done deal."

          Buck thought about that for a second.  Gillingham was a weasel of the worst kind.  And slippery as a greased eel.  There was probably good reason to think he wasn't going to let go of this easy—especially while he was winning public opinion. 

          Buck cocked his head over and squinted at Chris.  "So you figure this makes it a done deal?"

          A tiny smile flickered over Chris's face.  "Couldn't hurt to give him an incentive."

 

 

          J.D.'s office phone rang at three-fifteen PM.  He answered it. 

          Buck tried not too look like he was listening but from the corner of his eye he could see Chris leaning a little farther forward, too.

          The trajectory of the conversation told him it was just business as usual.

          At 3:22 it was IT.

          At 3:54 it was Casey. 

          It took a maddeningly long time to get her off the phone.

          Buck looked at Chris and noted how much easier it was for Chris, hiding over there in his office, to get away with eavesdropping.

          At 4:17, the call came in.

          By the end of it, the entire bullpen was silent.

          And J.D. was grinning from ear to ear.

          "Yes, sir.  Thank you, sir." He was saying, mouth running and not hardly even listening to himself.  "Papers to sign.  Yes.  I'll be there.  Yes.  Today.  Yes."

          The click of the phone was deafening in the expectant silence. 

          They were all staring at him.  Vin, Ezra, Nathan, Josiah, Buck.  Even Chris had come out of his office.

          "She dropped the suit!" he whooped.  "Shana Morton dropped the suit."

          The bullpen exploded in happy cheers and congratulations.  Josiah thumped the kid on the back so hard it nearly knocked him over his desk.

          J.D. high-fived all the hands he could reach using both hands and then chest-thumped Vin.  He shook Ezra's hands and thanked him for his congratulations.

          Chris gave him a smile and a satisfied nod and went back into his office, which prompted J.D. to squeeze out of the milling melee of happy teammates and into Chris's office.

          "Chris," he said breathlessly.  "Frank said I have to sign some papers and stuff.  You know.  Can I leave early?"

          It wouldn't have been fair to yank the kid's chain.  Not at a time like this.

          "Go on," Chris said.  "Go take care of the paperwork.  And then go celebrate."

          "Yeah," J.D. said happily.  "You know Frank thinks the other two suits will fold now that Shana Morton has dropped hers."

          "That's great news," Chris said.  And it was. 

          For J.D.'s sake, Chris ignored the unsettled doubt in the center of his chest and tried not to think about how Shana Morton must be feeling right now.

          He called Jacob Wilder instead.

          A deal was a deal.

          Wilder was unhappy.  "You should have consulted me," he said bluntly.  "There was no reason for you to drop the suit.  He had nothing.  I could have made this a slam dunk."

          Chris waited patiently for the tirade to ebb.  "You know, it wasn't really about that."

          Wilder sighed.  "We can still get D'Aprix," he said.  "If anything, the case there is even stronger, and his inflammatory comments are a matter of public record."

          Chris smiled to himself.  He really liked Wilder.  "Jacob," he said patiently.  "Drop both suits."

          Wilder's voice sounded truly disappointed.  "You mind telling me why?" he asked.

          The smile broadened.  "Let's just say I already got what really mattered."

          Wilder grunted his resignation.  "And it wasn't satisfaction or money," he said finally.  "You're an interesting guy, Larabee."

          Chris grinned.  "When will it be convenient to pick up the invoices and pay you for your work?"

          "I'll draw up the invoices tonight," Wilder answered.  "I mean it when I say I enjoyed the work, and I hope we can do business again."

          Chris chuffed out a silent, knowing laugh.  By "enjoyed the work", Wilder mostly meant he liked going on Sandford's radio show. 

          The man did good work, though.

          "You never know," was all the confirmation Chris gave him.

          Buck was in his doorway when he hung up.

          "So?" he said.  "Saloon?  Celebrate?"

          And the niggling doubt became a little clearer.  It was hard to celebrate someone's acceptance that their child's death had been somehow "justifiable". 

          He didn't say that, though. 

          After all, that wasn't what J.D. and the others would be celebrating.  Not exactly.

          "Sure," he said.  "Tell the boys to wrap it up out there.  Army CID won't be in here until ten.  We should be ready to brief by then."

          Buck nodded his satisfaction, but he lingered in the doorway.

          "So you're not going to be a millionaire and retire early?" he said finally.

          "What?" Chris asked. 

          "Your lawsuit against Gillingham.  You dropped it?"

          "A deal's a deal," Chris answered, trying not to sound rueful about it.

          Buck nodded again, but the way he pressed his lips together told Chris he had something more to say.

          Chris waited.

          "In a way, it's a pity," Buck said.  "You could have taken that bastard to the cleaners for shooting his mouth off the way he did and for stealing your file, too.  Now no one will know how wrong he was."

          Chris shrugged as he locked up his desk drawers and reached for his duster hanging on the back of his office door.

          "There's always D'Aprix, though," Buck said brightly. 

          Chris shook his head.

          Buck looked at him for a long time, standing there face to face.  "Damn," he said finally.

          "Leave it alone," Chris warned him, albeit gently.  D'Aprix did good work, in principle.  There was little to be gained from smearing the man.  All it ever was was leverage anyway.  And in the end it had all worked out.

          "Damn," Buck said again and clapped Chris between the shoulders.  The hand gave Chris's neck a little squeeze and propelled him gently out the door toward a drink and a celebration and a chance to be happy in the glow of J.D.'s relief.

          There were worse ways to end a day, Chris knew, and he pushed thoughts of Shana Morton out of his head.

 

 

          Pathetic.  And sad.  That's what it was.

          He hadn't voiced the thought, as it had been entirely too obvious the groundskeeper thought the same.

          That was last summer as the two men stood looking down at the drooping half-chewed survivors.

          "Dig 'em up," the grizzled groundskeeper had pronounced at last.  "Dig 'em up and put in something new."

          Chris didn't argue with the man.  And he did dig up the poor bedraggled plants.  This was one of the few remaining cemeteries in the area that still allowed people to decorate graves.  But there were rules about what you could use and what you could plant, and according to an unspoken gentleman's agreement, the plantings were expected to look attractive. 

          Those poor little droopy-headed flowers had not met the standard.

          So Chris dug them up.

          He didn't put in something new though.  Not exactly.  He wasn't giving up yet.  Among the great pantheon of flowers Sarah had loved, these she had pronounced among the elite she called favorites.

          He was not giving up on them yet.

          He had marched to the garden store to try to grow some from seed, but had left chagrined because he couldn't remember their names.  He should have remembered that.  Oh how Sarah had laughed at that.  She thought it was funny that a man who could remember legal regulations, names and faces of suspects he had never seen before, kinds of weapons, and could passably speak more than one language, couldn't remember the name of a simple flower.  He had been subjected to downright ridicule when he tried to excuse his ignorance by claiming they looked just like all those other flowers to him.

          He had let her laugh.

          He liked to hear her laugh.  Even when she was laughing at him

          He heard her laugh echo out of his memories last week in the home store when he rounded the corner out of the plumbing department and saw them on a long table.  Purple and white.  He recognized them.  He still didn't know their name but he bought a dozen tiny green plastic cups of them and took them home. 

          It wasn't until much later that he had squinted at the plastic tabs knifed into the dark soil in each flat of cups and read the requirements they needed to grow.  He had no idea what kind of light there was, let alone soil and drainage.  He shrugged.

          If this batch died, too, maybe he really would try something new.

          Just as soon as he was through trying again.

          Buck had been over Saturday night. 

          He didn't say why he was at Chris's house instead of out among the women or snuggled up in a nice restaurant giving his full attention to just one of them. 

          Chris didn't ask either. 

          They found a crappy old movie that made them think way back and had a good laugh at the boys they used to be.  Buck ended up commandeering the downstairs guest room because he was too lazy to drive home.

          Chris got up early, took a run, and came home to find Buck sitting at the kitchen table, in boxers and a tee shirt, getting toast crumbs all over the Sunday paper.

          He had made coffee, though.

          And when Chris told him he was going to the cemetery to plant the flowers that had been sitting on the side deck for a week while they worked their collective asses off on the Santoro case, Buck simply said, "I'll help" and went to put on actual clothes from some gym bag he kept stashed in the guest room closet.

          By the time Chris came down from showering and dressing, Buck had put the flowers in Chris's Ram along with a collection of whatever tools looked likely and six bottles of water.

          When Chris looked at him funny, he just shrugged.

          Clearly Buck didn’t know what he was doing, but Chris didn't point it out.  What was the point when he was hardly an expert himself.

 

 

          Shana had never expected to see him or talk to him again.  There was no reason to.  It was not like they shared any kind of association.  Or had anything in common whatsoever.

          Although that was not entirely true.

          Their common thread was right there in front of her now, stretching out on all sides, up and down gentle hills and winding in and out of stately trees, strewn with mossy and discolored urns spilling out ivy, and all the colors that granite and marble could display.  Acres of them.  All of them silent.

          He was with another man.  Between them, they were working at planting a small batch of flowers into the earth at the foot of one of the marble monuments.

          It would be his wife's.

          She knew it was his wife's.  Remembering their chance meeting here at the funeral for Ky, she had gone looking once on one of her visits to sit beside Ty's grave.  Her name was Sarah, and their child had been called Adam. 

          It was none of her business.  And yet it was their only tie.

          He raised his head then, and she realized she had stood too long.  He saw here there and climbed to his feet.  Even from here, she could see the smudges of earth and grass on his knees.

          He did not smile or call a greeting.  He just looked at her.  Silent.  As he had been outside of Gerald Gillingham's office the morning of the deposition. 

          It seemed like a lifetime ago.  She did not like to think about it.  The endless back and forth wrestling inside of her twisted her up too much.  She did not know if ending the lawsuit had been the right decision or the wrong one.  Anyone who wanted to venture an opinion on the subject received the sharp end of her tongue.  It was enough that it was ended.  Done.  A decision had been made.  It had to be left at that.

          The other man had seen her now. 

          Unsure why or just what she had to say or even whether this was a good idea, Shana let her feet carry her toward them. 

          Then she was only three feet away, standing in the lush grass and facing him, the two white marble graves a line of demarcation between them. 

          The other man she recognized now.  She did not remember his name, but she remembered he had said some things on TV that had made her angry.

          He worked with Chris Larabee. 

          And, she reasoned, there was more to it than that if he was out here on a Sunday pulling plants out of green plastic flats and putting them in the ground.

          She eyed the collection of tools at their feet and wondered what they planned to do with some of them. 

          Chris Larabee recovered his manners first.  Turning to his friend standing off to the side, he said politely, "Shana, this is Buck Wilmington.  Buck this is Shana Morton."

          He recognized her name.  She saw the reaction in his eyes. 

          It happened from time to time that someone recognized her name.  And then there was a reaction, an opinion, usually unstated, that flashed through their eyes, or maybe a judgment. 

          The one she couldn't handle was pity.

          Pity was hard.

          And far too easy to fall into.

          She nodded her head at Buck Wilmington.

          He wiped the dirt off his palms and reached out to shake her hand.  His blue eyes held something that looked a lot like regret.  His hand was big, and warm and strong.

          She wondered why that should have surprised her.

          Chris Larabee spoke.  "How are you?"  he asked. 

          She hated that question, too.  But maybe it was the look in his eyes.  Maybe it was the common thread.  Maybe it was she knew he wanted to know.

          She shrugged and looked away.  "It's hard," she said finally.

          He nodded his head as she looked back, holding her gaze with eyes painted with the kind of understanding you only get from experience.

          His friend Buck looked down and away. 

          She didn't know what else to say.

          A few niceties and pieces of small talk floated fragmented through her brain, all of them rejected.  All so meaningless amid the enormity of this place.

          There was nothing to say.

          The silence hung.

          "I'm leaving," she said, the words surprising even herself.

          His head tilted to one side, puzzled and she realized the way that must have sounded.

          "Moving, I mean," she clarified at the same time she wondered why she was telling him.  He must have wondered, too, she thought.  But the words wanted out, so she told him.

          "I'm going back with my mother," she said.  She realized he didn't know her mother.  Then she realized that he might well have seen her that horrible morning.  "She came when—" the words stuck.

          He nodded.  Yes, he remembered.  It was in his eyes.

          She took a breath and tried not to let it shudder.  "Gonna start new," she said.  "You know."

          She looked around at the headstones surrounding her and the headstones surrounding those and the headstones surrounding even those and on and on like ripples in a clear lake, never ending.

          "How do you do it?" she blurted out suddenly, looking up at him.  "How do you stay?"

          His eyes crinkled down at the corners but it was several moments before he answered, quiet, honest.  "I had some people who refused to let me go."

          Buck Wilmington wiped a hand down his mustache, put his head down, and turned away.

          "You got someone like that?" Chris asked her. 

          Tears scratched at her eyes.

          "She's taking me back home with her," Shana said, air creaking in her words and an ache in her throat.

          "Then you'll be okay," Chris Larabee pronounced, softly certain, the crinkles in the corners of his eyes turning very slightly upward.

          And she believed him.  She had to.  It helped that he was standing here to prove it.

          Her eyes strayed past him, down the slight hill to where orange-red flowers shone in the sunlight, blanketing two graves side by side. 

          She took a breath and then another.  "Leaving him will be the hardest part," she said, jutting her chin toward the downhill. 

          He followed her gaze.

          "Is it wrong, do you think, to just leave him?" Her voice broke.

          Wilmington moved another step away, pretending very hard to examine a nearby cedar tree.

          She was instantly sorry she asked.  What a fool she was.  She had no right to ask this man anything.  And she certainly had no business airing her problems.

          She could tell him never mind.  It was a dumb question.  She could offer false excuses, say "I have to go now."  Better yet, she could just turn and walk away.

          But the answer was already in his face.  He did not look at her.  His face stayed locked on the graves under the orange-red flowers.  But the answer was there for her to read, as clearly as if he had written it out on a piece of paper she could put in her pocket and take with her.

          He looked down at his feet, where a pair of brightly-colored pinwheels turned on his child's grave. 

          Then he spoke.  "You aren't leaving him," he said, looking at her steadily,  "because he's not here."

          He turned and looked at her and spoke the truth in his eyes.

          "He's with you.  Wherever you are."

          Shana held herself stiff, still.  Lest she might grab onto his arm—or worse. 

          The corner of his mouth twisted up wryly as he indicated the headstones around him with one hand.  "This is just a convenient meeting place."

          Buck Wilmington, still turned away, his back still toward them, looked down at his feet.

          And Shana swallowed down the lump in her throat and felt another chunk of guilt spread wings and fly up off her shoulder.

          "Thank you," she said, and she reached out to shake Chris Larabee's hand.

          His hand enveloped hers but he did not so much shake her hand as give it a small, firm squeeze, sending a wonder of messages up her arm.

          "Good luck," he said quietly, sincerely.

          Then he let go of her hand. 

          And she felt her lips curl up in a smile of gratitude.  He had come unbidden, uninvited that terrible night.  And she hadn't even known she needed someone until he was there. 

          She had never called the number on his card.  And yet in a way, just having that card had helped her immensely.

          And now, unexpectedly, here he was helping her again.

          There was a kind of miracle in that.

          She recalled his words of a moment ago and wondered who it had been who had held that quiet strength for him when he was drowning.

          Then Buck Wilmington announced his returning by clearing his throat.  He looked awkwardly from Chris to Shana to the waiting plants wilting on their sides in the grass.

          And Shana knew the answer.  It had been this man Buck.

          Something about that, and something about him standing here right now made her glad—even if the two of them together didn't know squat about plants.

          She was halfway to the gravel road, that thought still turning over in her mind.  She looked back at the two men absorbed in their work, voices low, hands working in concert.

          She worried at her lower lip for a moment, then shook her head and went on her way.

 

 

          The phone on his nightstand rang.  Too early, his head protested.  He looked blearily at the clock and had to rub his eyes and look again.  Damn, how had he slept so late?

          Then again, he'd only been in bed four hours.  By the time he'd finished his conference call with Walter Dade, night had been moving well on its way to morning.

          The damn phone was still ringing.

          He grabbed for it but didn't recognize the number on the display.

          "Larabee," he grunted and tried to sound awake. 

          The silence on the other end went on long enough that he wondered whether someone had wisely decided to just hang up and leave him alone.

          Then the voice spoke.

          "I'm sorry."  There was a hesitation.  "Maybe I shouldn't have called."

          He sat upright, rubbing his eyes and raking a hand back through his hair as the name and the face came back to him.

          "It's fine," he said hurriedly.  "What can I do for you?"

          He swung his feet to the floor and looked distractedly at the clothes he had flung on the rocking chair before falling face down onto his pillow.

          He got up and shuffled downstairs, the walk activating whatever neurons he had this morning that could still think straight.

          The caller cleared her throat.  It took her several tries to formulate her request into words that made sense and even then it took a second for the meaning to sink in.

          He paused in the kitchen and faced the coffee maker.

          "I know it sounds crazy," she said, haltingly, as if the words themselves were unwilling to come, "And I have no right to ask for a favor, but," she hesitated and then blurted out, "I'd like to meet him.  Agent Dunne.  To talk to him.  To tell him about my son.  And you're the only one I could think of to ask."

          The coffee maker and kitchen and everything in the house faded from his attention.

          He realized she was waiting for an answer.  He forced his tongue to move.  "I'll ask him and see," Chris answered. 

          It was not the most reassuring of answers.  He wondered if he shouldn't have started instead by telling her it wasn't really crazy. 

          People looking for closure often sought out the ones who caused their pain.  It was part of letting go, somehow. 

          Chris would have liked to meet the person who killed his family, too.  But he was pretty sure when he did, the only letting go he would do was when his friends and a handful of policemen dragged him away from the lifeless body.

          He shook his head to clear it.

          "Thank you," she said and apologized awkwardly again, for what he didn't know.  Then she hung up.

          Chris poured too many scoops of coffee into the filter basket and turned on the coffee maker while he debated how he was going to approach J.D.

          He looked at the clock again.  Due to last night's late hour, he had given his agents the morning off. 

          J.D. would likely be at home.  Or out on his bike.  Maybe even enjoying himself.

          Chris decided it could wait another couple of hours.

          Then he went to snooze on the couch between weather reports while he waited for the coffee to finish.

          The Team looked dog-tired when they dragged themselves in about noon.

          Except Ezra, who dragged himself in about one. 

          "It's afternoon," Nathan pointed out.  "How can you say you're late in the morning because we start too early, but you're still late even when we start in the afternoon?"

          "It's not about the hour, Mr. Jackson," Ezra returned icily.  "It's about whether or not I get to sleep."

          This last was said at a raised volume and was evidently directed toward the team leader's office.

          The comment fell on deaf ears.

          "We all worked late, Ezra," Vin said.

          "'Cept nobody else complains about it," Chris added, sweeping through the bullpen with file folders for everyone and a command to convene in the conference room in five minutes.

          There was a yawn or two, but no one commented or protested.  They wanted to close this case, too.

          At two-thirty Buck got called down to DA's office to go over some evidence from a case they closed last year.

          Chris called J.D. into his office.

          "Shut the door," he said, which made J.D. look worried, so he added, "and have a seat."

          J.D. didn't so much sit as perch, right on the front of the seat where he could spring up and take flight in case Chris tried to eat him.

          "I got a call from Shana Morton this morning," Chris said.

          The kid looked surprised and dismayed both.

          Only last week, Frank had finally been able to put all his concerns to rest.  No more pending lawsuits.  A clear career.

          He could hardly see the prospect of Shana Morton reentering his sphere of concern as good news.

          "She'd like to meet you," Chris said bluntly.  "I said I would ask you."

          He looked at J.D. and waited.

          "What for?" J.D. blurted out.

          "Closure mostly," Chris answered.

          J.D. seemed to think about it for a long time.

          "Do you think I should?" he asked.

          Chris shrugged.  "I can't answer that for you."

          J.D. sighed.

          "Do you think I should bring a body guard?" he asked. 

          It was a poor joke.

          "She's not going to shoot you," Chris said wryly.  "And I'm pretty sure you could take her in a fair fight.  So probably not."

          J.D. flushed. 

          "But you should meet in a public place," Chris said.  "And you might like to make sure you have an exit strategy."

          J.D. was reminded of Buck's advice on blind dates. 

          He let out a long breath.  "Okay," he said, at last.  Then one more time as if he hadn't been quite convinced the first time.  "Okay."

          "I'll call," Chris said.

          J.D. left the office more nervous than he was when he went in.

 


	20. Chapter 20

 

          Shana Morton would always remember the blue of the sky.  It was different in Denver.  Maybe it was being a mile up in the air.  A mile closer to heaven.  It was the first thing she had noticed when she had moved here all those years ago.  And it was among the last things she was noticing before she left.

          She slid into a booth inside Peaberry's, feeling awkward and out of place and ordering nothing as her stomach wouldn't accept even the idea of food.  She tried to concentrate on the sky. 

          The bell on the door jangled and her head jerked up.  A man in shorts, a golf shirt, and flip flops came loudly in, announcing his arrival by greeting the girl on duty behind the counter.

          The next bell jangled against her nerves and admitted two women in suits, striding purposefully in high heels and obviously in a terrible hurry.  In.  Order.  Pay.  Pick up.  Out. 

          Shana looked at her watch.  She looked at the clock over the counter.

          She looked at the door.

          The door finally jingled them in at exactly seven minutes and twelve seconds past time.

          She held her breath as first came Chris Larabee, tall and blond, and behind him, almost shielded from her view, the face she remembered from the papers and from television.  A face she could never forget.  John Daniel Dunne.

          He was smaller than she had thought.  Shorter.  Slimmer.  Younger.

          Agent Larabee spotted her right away and wove his way toward her through the mostly-empty tables.  Dunne seemed to trail along in his wake.

          When they got to Shana's table, Chris Larabee introduced them, both as formally and as casually as he had introduced her to Buck Wilmington nearly a week ago.

          Dunne—he called himself J.D.—did not seem to know whether to shake her hand or not.

          But Shana knew.  She kept her hands jealously in front of herself.

          Chris Larabee looked from one of them to the other, seemed satisfied with what he saw, and moved away, stopping at the counter to order coffee, and eventually settling himself at a table on the sidewalk outside.  Shana could see him through the front window.  She smiled grimly to realize that was probably no accident.

          "Thank you for agreeing to meet," Shana said finally.

          J.D. Dunne didn't seem to know what to say, so he settled on the truth.  "I wasn't sure I should."

          Now that he was here, now that she had seen him, the questions that had clogged her mind seemed to flutter away from her grasp like so many moths.

          She reached into her purse and took out a copy of the article that Mary Travis had written.  She smoothed it against the table top, feeling the paper under her hand and trying not to let her palms damage the thin paper.

          "I just wanted you to know," she said, "there was more to Tyson than that one day in that store."

          "I know that," he said.

          But she talked over his answer.  There were things that needed to be said.  Right now was not his turn to speak.

          "I wanted you to know a little bit about him," she said, trying not to choke. 

          She pushed the article toward him. 

          Agent Dunne's eyes got big and earnest.  "I do know a little bit about him," the man said.

          He hitched down in the seat and rooted around in his pocket.

          Then before her eyes he unfolded and smoothed out the very same article. 

          "I read it," he explained.

          He smoothed out another article.

          "I read about the other boy, too."

          She looked at him.

          "You did?" she asked finally, stupidly, obviously.  He handed her a napkin when she started to cry because she realized he really had read the articles, had cut them out, had kept them, and had thought to bring both of them to this meeting.

          "Ma'am," he said gently.  "Believe me when I tell you I wish there was a way that day could have turned out that nobody got hurt.  I've gone over it every which way, looking for something I could have or should have done different."

          He breathed in.

          "I didn't want to hurt your son.  Or any of those boys.  And I am sorry it turned out like it did."

          She dragged the damp napkin across her nose and looked at him. 

          He never said it wasn't his fault.  He didn't apologize for his actions either.

          Like he didn't regret his actions exactly.  Just the results of those actions.

          She didn't know what she had expected him to say.

          Something she could reproach him for.

          Some reason she could walk away justified in hating him.

          Instead he sat there and had the audacity to be earnest and truthful.  And human.

          "I'd like to know more, though," he said quietly.  "If you'd like to tell me."

          For most of an hour Chris Larabee sat outside the window sipping on coffees and eventually getting hold of a newspaper.

          Inside, Shana spoke of Tyson and Kyle, Ty and Ky, the two musketeers.  She retold the stories from the article.  Reciting them the way ancient cultures told their people's stories around the fire, stories that defined who they were, stories too important to be allowed to become distant memories.

          Somewhere in the middle, she learned that J.D. Dunne was from New York.  That he postponed college for one year to take care of his sick mother.  And when she died, he went to MIT to live out the dreams she had for him.  But in the end, it was his own dreams that pulled the strongest.  He joined the Boston police and came out to Denver to join Chris Larabee's ATF team.  He still rooted for the Red Sox and the Mets because, he said, a person couldn't root for the Sox and the Yankees both.

          He told her he was glad he came to meet her.  He thanked her for telling him about Tyson and Kyle both.  And for letting him tell her about his mother.  He said he was sorry.  And that's where his voice ended.  He refused to say exactly what he was sorry about, but volumes of it swirled in his hazel eyes.

          And she murmured out a thank you for meeting her.

          He slid out of the booth and stood.

          Beyond the window, Chris Larabee uncrossed long legs and folded his newspaper under his arm.  He got up from his chair and waited.

          J.D. Dunne carefully folded the two articles together and slid them back into his pocket.  Wrapped around each other, like Ty and Ky.  Maybe like Chris Larabee and his friend Buck.  And maybe Agent Dunne, somehow, too.

          "Goodbye," he said.  That was it.  No "good luck".  No "take care".  Just goodbye. 

          "Goodbye," she said.

          The bell jangled his departure.  She watched them walk away, two pairs of disembodied legs, the rest of them hidden behind the words and logo painted onto the window glass.

          They were gone when the tears came.  Hot and angry.  They convicted her of betrayal.  Unforgivable treason.  Because J.D. Dunne was supposed to have been a monster, a beast without heart or conscience.  He was supposed to sit there cold-hearted and arrogant.  Justified and secure.  He owed her that.  He owed her the right to hate him. 

          So badly, she had wanted him to be a monster.

          But he was not.

 

 

 

 

          The last Thursday morning in summer was anything but ordinary.  In the cold of daybreak, four armed men shuffled warily around a truck, filling it with boxes.  They closed the door, banged on it, and sent the driver off on his way.  Ezra Standish drove the truck straight to the impound lot, with all the contraband stowed safely aboard.  It took far less time for six agents of Team Seven to swoop in, laying the four men face down on the concrete, hands interlaced behind their heads, waiting to be cuffed.

          Major Walter Dade received a phone call locating his last twenty rifle sights in New Mexico.  Denver ATF had pointed him there straight and sure.  He would have good news for the ten-hundred briefing.

          A motley collection of twelve green plants held themselves determinedly erect and slowly opened purple and white flowers to the sun. 

          Down a short slope, red and orange blossoms tangled themselves together and ran all amok until no one could tell which ones actually started out on which plot.

          Evie Travis brought Orin a cup of fresh coffee and sat down across from him to enjoy an hour together before they each headed into their separate days.

          Mary Travis stood in her son's doorway and watched him sleep, fine blond hair tousled on the pillow and cheeks warm and pink.  If she listened very carefully, she could hear a faint whistle as he breathed slowly in and slowly out through his nose.  In her right hand, clutched under her left arm, was a printed copy of an e-mail from the editor of the Colorado Leader.  He was on Leila Wallace not so long ago and had the chance to express that he thought her recent articles were brilliantly done.  He called them thoughtful, well-researched, and hard-hitting.  She was clearly a thinking journalist. 

          She liked that. 

          Saul Nussbaum would have like that, too.

          There was a job offer in that letter, but she had already declined with thanks.  She wasn't ready to leave the Clarion.  Not while they needed her.  Not while Elliot Koos might still become a great reporter.  Maybe Marty Carlson might wake up today and realize they needed reporters like her.  If not today, maybe one day soon.

          She moved out of the doorway and went soundlessly down the stairs.

          A letter traveled across the morning landscape in a postal truck.  Typed by a woman named Marva, it had been carefully composed and then signed by Cyril D'Aprix, President of the West Side Community Action League.  It was addressed to Senior Agent Christopher Larabee, Denver ATF and stated, in short, that he had been hasty in his assessment of Chris Larabee's character and the character of his agents.  He would endeavor to do better in the future and would always be grateful Chris had been more generous with him.

          Jacob Wilder rolled over and went back to sleep.  Working on the books late last night, he had been pleased to project that he might be able to afford to hire a combination paralegal and administrative assistant sometime in the next eight months.  He would start by asking around this year's Law and Leadership Conference coming up next month.  He and Frank Lawford had their places reserved.

          Casey Wells admired the beautiful sunrise and the flowers on the farmhouse kitchen table.  From J.D.  They had come with an apology of sorts.  And a thank you, kind of.  But definitely a plan for an outstanding weekend that would begin to make up for a waste of a good summer.  She put her breakfast dishes away and went out to feed the calves.

          Raine Jackson listened to Miles Sandford on the radio and didn't hear a single mention of anyone she actually knew.

          Ray Ferrante yawned and came to the end of his shift.  There had been very little action tonight.  And frustratingly little progress.

          He gave his partner an acerbic "Good morning," as he did at the end of every shift and headed for his car.

          Driving home, he watched the buses crawl like square dinosaurs, blinking stupidly in the sunlight, moving in small herds into the bus station, different logos blazing on their sides.

          He always wondered where people were going this early in the day.  One day, he thought, he'd park his car, go inside and find out.

          The last bag went inside the underbelly of a waiting bus.

          Shana held back a shuddering breath and tried to pretend she was shivering because of the cold.

          The bus let out a sharp, startling hiss and lowered its great metal head a foot or more.  Shana helped her mother take one short step into the bus then handed her off to a bus driver who didn't look much younger than she.  Shana shot last minute instructions to both the driver and her mother, as they went up the steps.

          Shana did not follow.  She was waiting.  And it was not yet time to go.

          Other people brushed by her, singly and in pairs, even one small group with children. 

          Her eyes scanned the parking lot, taking in everything.  The beautiful blue of the morning sky.  The streetlamps still on in the early morning light.  Even the chain-link fence footed with beige plastic bags and white paper napkins seemed elevated from its ugliness into something she might have loved if she had had more time.

          "Five minutes," the driver called out.  "Five minutes to departure.  All aboard!"

          Five minutes. 

          She only needed one to get aboard.

          The streetlights began to wink out.

          She squeezed back tears that were not for the fence or the trash or the cars or the streetlights, or even the blue Denver sky. 

          "Shana!  Shana!"  The voice came from far off like a dream, some hallucination of sound.  It nearly didn't make it all the way into her consciousness.

          "Wait!" called the voice, filled with urgency and desperation and so familiar that Shana knew just what she was looking for when her eyes swept the parking lots.

          Across the parking lot she came, charging toward the bus, arms flailing in the air, calling, breathless, and stumbling in heels that were too high for running after someone in a bus station parking lot.

          Mute and half blinded, Shana could only raise her arms until Kierra fell right into them, grabbing on and squeezing with thin arms that were and always had been small bands of steel.

          She was shoving a bag against Shana's ribs.  It smelled of chicken.

          "For the trip," Kierra said breathlessly in her ear.  But it was not the run that stole the air from her lungs.

          They clung there, laughing and sobbing both, tears streaming down both their cheeks as the driver called out four minutes.

          Then three.

          Then two.

          Shana held tight to Kierra's arm.  "Come with us," she said, believing for just one moment that she really could persuade her friend to climb on board with her and just leave everything behind—everything except Shana and her mother.

          Kierra pulled back, running a hand across Shana's hair and pressing it to her cheek.  "You got to go," she said.

          Shana opened her mouth.

          "And I got to stay," Kierra finished.

          She shook her head against anything Shana might have said and wrapped her in another last quick hug.

          "All aboard," the bus driver said, losing his patience.

          "What am I going to do without you?" Kierra whispered against Shana's ear.

          "I don't know," Shana hiccupped out. 

          Kierra, still holding tight, somehow managed to push her toward the bus stairs without letting go.

          "Call," she said.  "Write.  Text."  Her voice went plaintive.  "Don't give up on me."

          "Mama's saving a room for you," Shana said, backing up onto the first step of the bus.  "It'll be there as long as we are."

          The bus hissed as the hydraulics lifted up the stairs.  Shana stumbled a little and grabbed for the handrailing.

          Then Kierra had let her go.  Seemingly without either one of them moving, she was three feet away and waving.  Blowing kisses at the window where Shana's mother sat with her face pressed close to the glass. 

          Then she was eight feet away with the asphalt world turning beneath her and rotating her away.

          A shrinking speck, growing more distant and still waving madly.

          Shana stumble-stepped into her seat, clutching the bag from Ruby Dee's to her chest.  But it wasn't really the bag she was holding there.  It was the sky.  And her mother beside her.  And two little boys running in an eternal summer.

          And a friend she refused to let go. 

 

 


End file.
